


Charming Young Man

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha Hunk (Voltron), Alpha Shiro (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Movie Reference, Omega Keith (Voltron), Omega Lance (Voltron), Past Relationship(s), Prostitution, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-06 00:02:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 66,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Shiro is a businessman with a need for a charming escort.  Lance is an escort with a need for rent money.  A chance meeting brings them together for a week, but fate may have other plans in store.





	1. One of These Nights

**Author's Note:**

> So, here I am again with another movie adaptation. Usually it is an image that sets me off, but this time it was a song, a mood and a pairing that somehow led me to "Pretty Woman." I found out that rom-coms turn on a longer story beat than other genres, so while there are fewer chapters, those chapters are longer. I'm not sure what warning would apply here besides prostitution and the dystopian elements that turn up in omegaverse. Explicit sex scenes, since the main couple do the do before falling in love instead of after. Day drinking. So much day drinking. And references to violence, but nothing graphic. If you've seen the movie you already know what to expect there. As usual, most of what happened in the movie will happen here, but other things happen in addition to that which were not in the movie.

“I told you I was coming here for business and that I would leave the plane tickets with my secretary so that you could join me.” Takashi Shirogane, “Shiro” to most who associated with him, tapped his Magnanni-shod foot impatiently on marble floors polished to a high shine.  
  
 _“And I told you that if you failed to accompany me to my cousin’s wedding, we were through. My parents keep asking to meet you, I can’t put them off forever.”_  
  
Shiro looked down from an upstairs window on the estate’s beautiful formal gardens, and the beautifully dressed people pretending to enjoy them. Purple alstroemeria dotted the landscape, standing for devotion. “Adam, I need you here.”  
  
 _“And I need someone who is actually going to be there for the most important moments of my life!”_  
  
“You must have a dozen more cousins who are bound to get married eventually, while I have important social events to get through for this entire week.” Important social events in the strangely baroque environs of Los Angeles, where the only people he could approach for counsel without losing face were his L.A. based lawyer Lotor and Lotor’s dagger-eyed wife Acxa.   
  
Shiro was accomplished at bluffing and calling bluffs. He was not accomplished at small talk or putting people at ease. Appeasement was not a skill highly valued in alphas, so he’d never bothered to master it. He needed a buffer, someone with more social charm than he possessed.   
  
_“Maybe you should have invited your secretary to spend the week with you.”_  
  
“Perhaps I should have, but I invited you and those plane tickets are non-refundable.”  
  
 _“Figures you’d only be worried about the money. Goodbye Shiro. We had a nice run.”_  
  
 _Click._  
  
Shiro sighed. “Goodbye Adam.”   
  
He hadn’t really been worried about the money, and felt foolish for thinking that mentioning the plane tickets could sway Adam to anything more than anger. He would honestly miss the omega’s whip-smart conversation, which had been much more intellectually challenging than the usual simpering aimed in his direction. Shiro had dress circle seats at the Met and had been looking forward to discussing the opera with Adam, who came from a socially prominent New York family and possessed a classical education and a fine analytical mind. Now he’d have to find someone else to accompany him.  
  
Also, now people would start asking him where his date was, and immediately start trying to set him up with friends if he admitted he’d just been dumped. He needed to leave. Shiro quickly made for the imperial staircase leading to the foyer of Lotor’s ridiculously ornate French chateau-style manse. The other alpha had no fewer than six living rooms, and so far as Shiro knew he never lived in any of them for longer than it took to impress a guest. Double leather soles tolled softly on marble as Shiro power-walked for the huge double doors. A footman in formal livery nodded at Shiro and opened one of the doors for him.  
  
“Shiro!”  
  
Almost home free, Shiro nevertheless turned obligingly to greet the omega trotting over to intercept him.  
  
“Matt, it’s good to see you,” Shiro said, and found that he meant it. “How have you been?”  
  
“I’ve been well,” Matthew Holt-Kinkade said, and he certainly looked well. “I was sorry to hear about Ryu.”  
  
Shiro was glad that he had such a good poker face. The mention of his late father felt like a hot coal in his chest. He knew Matt didn’t mean any harm by it. Matt remained the only omega Shiro had ever dated who had met with the old man’s unreserved approval. _Ginger and cream_ , Ryu had said upon meeting him, _that’s what they used to call looks like yours, Matthew_.  
  
“I heard you made it official,” Shiro said in lieu of responding to the sympathy he didn’t require.  
  
“Oh,” Matt reflexively brought a hand to the strands of silver and gold adorning his neck and highlighting his claim mark. “Yeah, last names, matching towels, the whole bit.”  
  
“Congratulations.” Marriage might not be in the cards for Shiro, but it seemed to agree with Matt. He glowed with good health and good cheer, his apple blossom scent fulsome with contentment. “Tell Kinkade he’s a lucky man.”  
  
“Thanks.” Matt offered the single hand clasp permitted between a married omega and an unmarried alpha. “I will.”  
  
Shiro squeezed Matt’s hand with genuine affection and released it with only the barest twinge of regret. Matt had wanted to get married far sooner than Shiro had even thought of entertaining the notion. If a lover expected him to drop everything in his busy life for their needs, how much more would a bride expect? More than Shiro was prepared to give, most likely.  
  
Lotor’s circular driveway was packed three cars deep, with the limousine Shiro had arrived in parked at the deepest point. Shiro strode over to the cars lining the front row. Lotor’s Jaguar coupe was right out front, sloping nose pointed toward freedom. Shiro leaned closer to squint past shaded glass, and smiled. The keys were in the ignition. He opened the door.  
  
“Shiro!” Lotor jogged across the lawn, the legs of his Brioni suit slightly hiked so as not to damage the cuffs on fresh-mowed turf. “Where are you going?”  
  
Shiro shrugged extravagantly. “Kai can’t get the limo out, it’s parked behind too many other cars.”  
  
Shiro’s chauffeur, Kai Shinobu, looked up from his National Enquirer, nodding and shrugging in solidarity. Shiro knew he could trust Kai to drive back to the hotel as soon as Lotor’s valet drivers cleared up the gridlock. The beta had been working for him for years. Members of his family had been employed by the Shirogane clan for generations.   
  
In the meantime, Shiro was going to take Lotor’s curb decoration out for a spin. He settled himself in the low-slung bucket seat, closed himself in the cockpit and cranked her up. A hint of bitter almond from Lotor’s favorite aftershave remained on the seats, along with a strong whiff of lavender which could have been from the aftershave or Lotor’s own natural pheromones. Shiro lowered the driver’s side window to let the scents dissipate in the breeze.  
  
“Wait!” There was no way Lotor was going to make it in time to physically restrain Shiro from driving off unless he let his pants cuffs go. “Do you even know how to drive a stick shift?”  
  
“Of course.” He’d driven one once before. It had been a few years, but surely it was just like riding a bicycle. “Don’t worry Lotor, I’m very well insured.” He carried non-owner liability insurance for just such situations as this one. Lotor’s wasn’t the first party he’d decided to ditch on the spur of the moment.  
  
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Lotor’s voice rang out stridently across the yard as his figure got smaller in the Jag’s rear view.  
  
“Of course I know where I’m going.” How to get there might be a different story, but surely he could figure it out. He occasionally drove in Manhattan, after all, how hard could Los Angeles traffic be compared to that? He shifted jerkily as the car roared down the drive.  
  
“This city has clashing grids!” Lotor hollered down the hill.  
  
Clashing grids? Shiro reached one hand into his suit pocket and pressed a button on the side of his phone. “Bixby, find the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and give me directions.”  
  
 _“Okay,”_ the virtual assistant chirped, _“here is what I found on the web!”_  
  
Shiro downshifted around a curve as sunset poured over the rolling hills like molten bronze. He had this in the bag. It would be fine.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _Bzzziiiinnnggg!_  
  
The stupid battery-powered alarm clock blatted insistently as Lance reached out blindly to smack the snooze button. The buzzing stopped. Lance fell back asleep almost immediately.  
  
 _Bzzziiiinnnggg!_  
  
Lance pulled the pillow off his head growling like the alpha he wasn’t. He checked the time as he stopped the alarm. It was prime time, the best time to attract clients, and he was sleeping right through it. Keening more like the omega he was, Lance hauled himself out of bed and hunted around the dark efficiency apartment looking for his working clothes.  
  
White cropped tank top from that time he waited tables at a novelty restaurant? Check. Red tuxedo jacket from that BYOB movie theater job? Check. Blue glitter bangles from that time he had a gig as a belly dancer at a hookah lounge? Check. Thigh high go-go boots from the strip joint where he met his current roommate? Check and check.  
  
Lance finished getting dressed and started his makeup. He was feeling cat eyes tonight. Should he wear a wig? He was gonna wear a wig. Some clients liked to pull hair, and that was fine as long as it was just wig hair.  
  
Dressed up, made up and bewigged, Lance strutted out of the room into the dimly lit hall. As he rounded the newel post to hit the stairs, he heard his landlord Morvok leaning on one of the downstairs neighbors for rent money.  
  
“It’s the first of the month, if you don’t have rent on the first of the month, you’re out!”  
  
“But I got no place else to go!”  
  
“That’s your problem, not mine!”  
  
Damn it. That snide little bastard would cheerfully kick out any omega he could find who couldn’t pay up when he was looking for rent. Morvok thought mercy was a stripper name. Lance crept back up the stairs and into the room. He went into the tiny bathroom, lifted the toilet tank lid and took out the plastic soap dish where he kept the petty cash.  
  
One freaking dollar?! Lance pocketed the dollar bill, threw the security latch on the motel room door and headed for the window. He climbed out onto the fire escape, knowing his roommate would be able to get back in despite the locks. Morvok would kick him out if he could find him, but he was too damn lazy to put much effort into finding people who weren’t home, and maybe by the time Lance got back he’d have more money. He climbed down the fire escape under the watchful gaze of Xi, a fruit cart vendor who disapproved of his choice of vocation but tended to keep themselves to themselves, so he wasn’t worried about Morvok getting a tip-off from them.   
  
Lance sneaked through the gap in the chain link fence, pulling the red tuxedo jacket closer around himself as he hit the sidewalk. He didn’t want to advertise the goods here, he wasn’t open for business until he got closer to the Strip. He walked past people dealing, stealing and freewheeling, and that one upbeat panhandler in the honeycomb hat whose preferred patter was to invite people to share their Hollywood dreams with him. If he made bank tonight then maybe Lance would share a little with the panhandler on his way back.  
  
Lance wound his way over to Sal’s Viper Pit (no affiliation with the much more famous venue a number of blocks over) and past a plainclothes cop questioning a dealer in front of the alley where Sal kept his dumpster.  
  
“You had to have seen something,” the cop was saying, and yeah Blofar probably saw something but this detective must be new to this scene if he thought he was going to get anything of use to him out of that guy. “Who was her pimp?”  
  
Lance slowed down but didn’t look over.  
  
“Her pimp is drugs, man. She’s a strawberry.”  
  
At that, Lance knew who must be in the dumpster. Poor Corral. Violence was a risk they all took on the job, but Corral had lost the sixth sense for when some johns were not right in the head. Corral’s drug habit had dulled her omega instincts and sense of smell, and cast her out of the omega flophouse where most of the others of Lance’s ilk rested their heads outside of working hours (whatever those working hours might be). Lance sped his feet and walked under the sign with an anaconda undulating across it in animated LED lights.  
  
Smoke was heavy inside the club: cigarette fumes, weed, and a bitter tinge of something more dangerous coming from the bathrooms. Loud music pumping through speakers too cheap to want to steal presented weak competition against the dull roar of chatter all around. Only the bass came through audibly, thumping through the floorboards with fuzzy distortion that was probably not how the track was meant to be heard. Lance peered around past gyrating bodies on the dance floor and people freely vandalizing the property. Sal could give a rip if his customers painted on the walls as long as they paid for their drinks. Lance meandered over to the bar, where the grumpy alpha in question was handing out watered-down beers.  
  
“Hey Sal, you seen Keith in here tonight?”  
  
“Upstairs, in the pool room,” Sal said, “and tell him he needs to pay his tab already!”  
  
Fabulous. Lance climbed the single flight to the pool room and found Keith sitting on Rolo’s lap and absentmindedly running a comb through his mullet. He had sunglasses on indoors, which he pushed up when he saw Lance, revealing pupils the size of softballs.  
  
“Lance!” He grinned in that goofy way which only ever happened when he smoked pot.   
  
It made Lance want to grin back at him. He tried to stifle it. “It’s the first of the month, Keith, please tell me you still have some of it left.”  
  
“Lance, you know Rolo and Nyma, right?” Keith gestured to the straggly-haired alpha whose lap he was gracing with his cutoff shorts, and the blonde beta chick whose street career Rolo was currently ‘managing.’ “We had a party, we still got some favors left if you want.”  
  
“Is one of those favors cash?”  
  
“He still owes me money for the boom,” Rolo said, “but I’d be willing to talk a trade for some boom boom.”  
  
Lance was officially done with this conversation. He grabbed Keith by the lapels of his motorcycle jacket and yanked him off Rolo’s lap and toward the stairs.  
  
“Hey!” Keith threw up an arm to break out of Lance’s grip, but instead of returning to the pool room he waltzed down the steps ahead of Lance, nimble as a ballerina in his roper boots, which was remarkable considering how blazed he probably was. “I would have asked you to come with, but you were dead to the world.”  
  
“Corral’s dead, for real.” Lance hustled down in the other omega’s wake. “She was sleeping on the streets, and if we don’t get rent money we will be, too.”   
  
The SoCal nights were starting to get a little nippy, but all too soon they would have an actual bite. This would be Lance’s second winter in California, and he still couldn’t get over how much colder it could get at night than he’d imagined. Keith had once patiently explained to him that they lived in a dry-summer subtropical zone, not a humid subtropical zone. The presence of palm trees didn’t guarantee hot weather year-round.  
  
“Relax.” Keith plucked up a cocktail napkin from the bar and started filling it with martini olives, celery stalks and maraschino cherries. His chocolatey akebia scent was warm and pharmaceutically mellow, enhanced on this particular evening only by a residual vapor of tobacco, malt and something that smelled like sage but definitely wasn’t. “We’re nowhere near as desperate as Corral.”  
  
“I ain’t running a buffet Keith!” Sal hollered from the other end of the bar, although he might as well have been, since he was too cheap to hire wait staff. That was why the drink garnishes were self-serve in the first place.  
  
That was why the local underground economy workers loved this club so much: no bouncers either. Sal owned the only set of eyes watching the joint, and there was only so much one harried alpha could pay attention to. He had cameras set up in the corners, but word on the street was that they were fake. Somewhere back by the bathrooms, a fist fight broke out. Other patrons crowded around and started taking bets.  
  
“Don’t you want to get out of here someday, Keith?” Sometimes Lance still thought it was possible. Most of his family remained in Cuba and might as well be on the moon. Despite that he hoped he might get out of this mess and see them again. It would be cool if it was while he was still breathing, and not in the afterlife.  
  
Keith popped a cherry between his lushly painted lips. “Where in the hell would we go?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
It was full dark and Shiro was not too proud a man to admit to himself that he was hopelessly lost. He slowed down and pulled up to the curb when he spotted a shrunken codger who appeared to be taking out his trash behind a wrought iron gate in front of a townhouse. He pressed the power button to lower the car’s passenger side window.  
  
“Excuse me,” he called out to the elder, who looked up from the trash bin and squinted in the headlights. Shiro courteously toggled to fog lights. “Do you know the way to Beverly Hills?”  
  
“Are you here to rob me?” The old man put down the trash bag and waved his arms around in the dark. “You should be careful, I have a moldy orange in my hand and my aim is exceptional in 98.2 percent of realities!”  
  
“I mean you no harm.” Shiro wondered whether the wrought iron gate was to protect the old man or to protect passers-by from the old man. “If you would please point me in the right direction, I’ll be out of your hair.”  
  
“Will you sue me if I do, and you get lost again?”  
  
What? “No?”  
  
“You don’t sound terribly sure.”  
  
“Never mind.” Shiro put the car back in gear. “ I’ll just be on my way.”  
  
The old man hollered out something about the odds of a lawsuit in multiple realities as Shiro sped away down the block.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Hey Ezor.” Keith’s grin was sharp as a switchblade. “What are you doing over here? Thought you were working the Shrek star with Zethrid.”  
  
“I am.” The beta, whose style aesthetic could be summed up as ‘psychedelic unicorn,’ cocked one skinny hip and looked over her narrow shoulder at Keith. “I’m just stretching my legs a little.” She smelled like cotton candy. Lance still wasn’t sure if that was drugstore perfume or her natural scent.  
  
“Yeah? Well go stretch ‘em back the other way. Me and Lance work Snow White, this is our turf from here all the way to Godzilla.”  
  
Lance took up a cross-armed pose beside Keith, knowing he didn’t look anywhere near as intimidating but still willing to throw hands if necessary.  
  
“Jeez, tell me how you really feel.” Ezor’s multicolored ponytail swung behind her as she flounced away down the Walk of Fame. “If you get a mark who wants a real woman you know where to find me.”  
  
“She’s gonna bring trouble,” Keith grumbled, staring after her as if his gaze could burn a hole in her neon spandex-clad back.  
  
Lance was in full agreement. “Hopefully just on herself.” Rumor among the local sex workers was that Ezor and Zethrid sometimes liked to beat up their tricks and rob them. Lance could understand the impulse, but the last thing they needed was to get caught up in a sting operation or somebody’s revenge spree.  
  
“You think we’re not as sexy as those girls?” Keith turned big violet eyes on Lance, his smoky eye makeup slightly smudged from whatever he’d been up to that evening.  
  
It was rare for Keith to ever show any doubts in himself, about anything. What could have brought this on? Keith could get a little paranoid while baked, but Lance suspected his sudden case of misgivings had arrived in a Rolo-shaped package. That guy had been trying to recruit them both for weeks. Lance still thought they were better off on their own.  
  
“Don’t listen to them.” Lance spared a moment to appreciate his friend, not bothering to hide his admiration. Sometimes when they wanted to prepare for a special request that came through their personals ad, they practiced on each other first. Lance would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it with Keith. “You’re hotter than a blue hypergiant.” It was the simple truth.  
  
“Nerd,” Keith said, but he was smiling again.  
  
Wolf whistles interrupted their moment, as a carload of drunk tourists tooled past in a rental. “Hey babe, it’s my birthday, flash me something!” shouted out one of them as he hung out the open window.  
  
“Happy birthday!” Keith yelled back, flashing two middle fingers in the air. “Fuck, it’s nothing but busted-ass punks out tonight. You know, if we had a pimp we wouldn’t have to stand around out here, we could just let him arrange the meets.”  
  
“Yeah, and then he’d arrange everything else in our lives.” Lance stared Keith down. “Remember the rules you taught me?”  
  
Keith’s alabaster skin flushed. He was the one who’d come up with the creed, he should remember. “We say who, we say when, we say how much,” he recited, with much less of the cockiness that Lance recalled from the first time he’d heard it.  
  
Keith had been on the job longer than Lance though, even before a city ordinance had closed the strip joint where they’d met. Lance wondered how long it took before body and soul were so worn down that any promise of relief would be met with simple acquiescence. He wondered how many more weeks before he was no longer able to talk Keith out of agreeing to Rolo’s not-so-generous offer.  
  
How many more weeks before he’d want to take it up himself?  
  
Time for Lance to offer up the best skill he brought to this partnership: self-deflecting distractions. “Do you think this wig makes me look too much like a Midge doll?”  
  
Keith ran a slim hand decorated with embellished nails over the wig’s sleek gingery-blond contours. “Not in a bad way.” His twilight eyes widened at something over Lance’s shoulder. “Holy fuck, check out the wheels!”  
  
Lance followed Keith’s gaze. “That’s a Jag.” The car herky-jerked over to the curb in fits and starts. “That’s a Jag with a terrible driver.”  
  
“No, baby doll.” Keith smacked Lance’s shoulder. “That’s rent. You should take him.”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“Yeah you.” Keith brushed lint off Lance’s arms which might not have been imaginary. They hadn’t been able to afford the laundromat for days. “Your pupils are normal-sized.”  
  
Lance rolled his eyes, but he knew what Keith was thinking: the driver was probably genteelly rich and older than dirt. That type tended to be skittish about any sign of illegal substances, afraid of having their medicine cabinets robbed after they inevitably fell asleep. Lance slid out of the tux jacket, revealing a large expanse of bared skin to the night air.  
  
“Go on, hot mama.” Keith gave Lance a friendly slap on the behind. “Call me when you’re through, take care of you.”  
  
“Take care of you.” Lance returned Keith’s finger guns and then started his sales pitch.   
  
He rolled his hips as he made the most of his go-go dancer boots, strutting down the sidewalk towards the parked Jaguar, its silver-grey shape crouched and purring dangerously on the corner, with Keith catcalling him encouragingly the whole while.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You can do this.” Shiro scrolled through the directions on his phone for the third time. “You are in complete control of this situation.”  
  
“Hey baby.” Suddenly there was someone leaning in the open passenger window of the car. “You looking for a date?” Syrupy sweet ylang-ylang perfume was not enough to cover the heady scent of a spicier floral underneath. _Omega_. Young, healthy, and unescorted?  
  
“No, I’m looking for the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.” Shiro turned and found wide-set blue eyes in a brown heart-shaped face staring back at him. “Can you give me directions?”  
  
Kohl-lined eyes narrowed and rouged lips pursed. “Sure,” said the omega, “for twenty bucks.”  
  
Shiro fixed the omega with his best bluffing stare. “You can’t be serious.”  
  
“Price just went up to forty.”  
  
Really? “You can’t charge me for directions.” Shiro sent out a puff of aggressive musk. _Submit_.  
  
“Rico, I can do anything I want.” If the omega was affected at all, he was covering it well. “I’m not lost.” He straightened his posture and then leaned his excellent posterior against the lip of the car window. He was wearing blue spangled booty shorts, riding low enough to reveal Venusian dimples.  
  
Shiro stared. He couldn’t help it. It was a really good butt, and he’d seen enough butts to consider himself an adequate judge of such things. He licked his lips and tasted something like candied ginger on the air. Intriguing. He wouldn’t mind humoring this omega prostitute (for that was surely what he was, dressed like that and shaking him down for directions) a little longer just to enjoy that scent. He’d paid more for his favorite cologne.  
  
“All right, you win. You got change for a fifty?”  
  
“For fifty I’ll be your personal GPS.” The omega opened the car door and invited himself into Lotor’s car just as audaciously as Shiro himself had back at the estate. “Keep going down this road, then take a right.”  
  
Shiro put the car in a gear (he was aiming for first, but the damn car didn’t want to obey his commands either) and they lurched on down the road.  
  
“Turn on your headlights!” said the omega.  
  
Oh, right. Low beams were appropriate for the current traffic conditions. He fumbled them back on.  
  
“This is a hot car.”  
  
Shiro glanced right to see the omega smiling in the passenger seat. It was not the seductive, knowing smile he’d aimed through the open window at first, but more of a little upturn of the lips in satisfaction.  
  
“It is, isn’t it?” Shiro had to admit, as frustrating as the gear shift was, the car itself was exciting to ride in. “Maybe I should get one.”  
  
The omega’s dark brown eyebrows rose to meet strawberry blond bangs. “So, this is a literally hot car?”  
  
“I didn’t steal it,” Shiro said testily, “I borrowed it.” Though Lotor might disagree with him on the semantics. “What’s your name?”  
  
“What do you want it to be?” The omega tilted his head and smirked.  
  
Shiro gave him his most unimpressed look, and the omega laughed. It was loud, uninhibited. Shiro wanted to hear it again and wondered what he would have to do to excite it.  
  
“The name’s Lance.” Lance looked around at the dash and out the window. “This car must corner like its on rails.”  
  
What? Rails? “Like a bullet train?”  
  
“Like the Red Line!” Lance grinned. “This an F-Type, it has a double wishbone suspension.”  
  
“You know about cars?” How did a pretty little omega prostitute know or care about automobiles beyond how comfortable the back seat was?  
  
“Sure.” Lance shrugged. “I’m from Cuba man, we’re still keeping our steel dinosaurs running over there. How does a big bad alpha know so little about cars?”  
  
“I’ve always had a driver.”   
  
It wasn’t just a convenience for Shiro. The Shinobu family relied on his family for employment, and one reliable post was as the household chauffeur. Besides, having a driver gave him more time to conduct phone meetings and check email.  
  
“Yeah, it shows. You’re not shifting right.”  
  
“Oh?” The sass on this omega! “How about you put my money where your mouth is and show me how to shift properly?”  
  
The genuine surprise on the omega’s face was satisfying to behold. “Was that a double entendre?”  
  
“No, that was me being perfectly serious.” Shiro jerked the car over to the curb and forced the gearshift into park. “Switch seats with me.”  
  
They switched seats, Lance slinging himself into the driver’s seat with a wild glee that made Shiro feel both smug to have caused it and fearful for his life.  
  
“Are you ready to go fast?”  
  
Shiro swiftly buckled his seat-belt. “Ready.”  
  
“Let’s go!”  
  
The car roared forth fast and powerful as a cheetah, the omega’s slim hands firm on the wheel as his face lit up with excitement under the street lights. They zipped through traffic at speeds that tested the omega’s reflexes and Shiro’s intestinal fortitude.  
  
“This car’s pedals are closer together than your typical two-door coupe.” Lance pinged around slower cars like a pinball in a machine as Shiro held onto the bottom of his seat. “So, you know. It’s probably easier for an omega to drive it. Because you know, smaller feet.” Lance shrugged. “Except for me, I wear a size ten.”  
  
Shiro didn’t think that was an unusual shoe size for someone Lance’s height, but maybe it was unusual for an omega male.  
  
“Hey, did you know your foot is the same size as your arm from your elbow to your wrist?”  
  
Shiro looked over at Lance and found that, alarmingly, he was looking back. “As a matter of fact, I did know that. Will you please watch the road?”  
  
“Sorry.” Lance stared back at the road and Shiro found himself missing the sunny smile that had previously been warming his face.  
  
This was exactly why Shiro needed a social buffer. He couldn’t even keep a prostitute happy on a minor errand that he was paying him for. _Change the subject_. “So what is the going rate for the oldest profession these days?”  
  
“Can’t take less than a hundred dollars,” Lance replied, sharply defined chin lifted proudly.  
  
“A night?”  
  
“An hour.”  
  
“An hour?!” Shiro didn’t even pay his secretary a hundred dollars an hour.  
  
“Hey!” Lance’s pretty mouth curled up in a moue of offense. “It takes a lot of upkeep to maintain all this, alright?” He took one hand off the wheel and waved at his body.  
  
Shiro took in ‘all this,’ which he was reasonably sure Lance owed to genetic blessings and not the day spa. “You have a safety pin holding your shorts closed,” he pointed out.  
  
“It’s a fashion choice,” Lance insisted.  
  
“Has anybody ever tried to stiff you?”  
  
Lance glanced at him, eyebrows waggling suggestively.  
  
Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose, felt the smooth scar tissue there which always somehow managed to ground him when he was frustrated. “I meant figuratively, not literally.”   
  
“Sorry.” Lance did not sound sorry. “You can’t gift me a pun like that and not expect me to roll with it.”  
  
“Duly noted.”  
  
Lance might be a speed demon with an inappropriate sense of humor and no concept of wage inflation, but he got them to the Beverly Wilshire safely and, if Shiro was being perfectly honest, faster than a taxi driver would have done. He coasted up to the curb near the front entry and parallel parked perfectly in just three turns.  
  
“Why are you not raking in the tips as a valet?” Shiro could not understand how Lance could not be legally employed when he could park this swiftly and neatly. That was a marketable skill in any major city.  
  
Lance shrugged. “I don’t have a driver’s license.”  
  
“You don’t... but you just... I let you...” He had just handed the keys of a ludicrously expensive car to an unlicensed and no doubt uninsured motorist.  
  
Lance smiled disarmingly. “Oops?”  
  
Shiro was rescued from an impending meltdown by the arrival of the night doorman, a young beanpole in grey livery with a name Shiro could never quite remember. Bilbo Baggins? No , that was the name of a Hobbit.  
  
“Good evening Mr. Shirogane.” He opened the passenger door and waited patiently for Shiro to collect his dignity and exit, then carefully closed the door after him. “Will you be needing the car again tonight?”  
  
“I sure hope not.”  
  
The driver’s side door slammed as Lance let himself out of the vehicle and sauntered over as if he hadn’t just nearly given Shiro an aneurysm.  
  
“Sooo....” Lance stood before Shiro rocking back and forth on the heels of his thigh high boots.  
  
“Right.” Shiro took two twenties out of his wallet and handed them over. “Do you need me to call you a cab?”  
  
“No, that’s okay.” The bills disappeared into the cuff of the right boot like magic. “I’ll catch the 20, I saw the bus stop on the way here.”  
  
Shiro took a moment to admire the long legs and bronze skin of the omega in front of him as Lance shrugged into the red tux jacket that had been hanging over his arm. Such a refreshingly forthright omega. Shenanigans aside, his company had been enjoyable.  
  
“See ya.” As he turned to leave, Lance smiled that little sphinx smile that had so charmed Shiro in the car, and suddenly he did not want the omega to go.   
  
He could not have fully articulated why, but he had learned the hard way to trust his instincts more than his etiquette training and so he acted upon the feeling without question. “Might I impose upon you for the rest of the evening?”  
  
Lance stopped half-turned, eyes widening.  
  
“Of course I would pay your going rate for the full night.”  
  
“I think I can clear my schedule.” Lance stepped right up to him with a bright smile.  
  
“Excellent.”  
  
They walked slowly together toward the door where Billy Boss – was it Billy Boss? – watched with the barely disguised curiosity of the young and horny.  
  
“Since you’re engaging my services,” Lance asked, “what should I call you?”  
  
“My name is Takashi Shirogane, but most people call me Shiro.” Shiro didn’t usually hand out his nickname on first meetings, especially not to people who were supposed to be answering to him, but for some reason that was the name he wanted to hear from this omega’s lips.  
  
“Shiro,” Lance hummed. “Did I mention that’s one of my favorite names of all time?”  
  
Such a shameless omega. “No. Really?”  
  
“Really!” Lance’s sly smile said he knew that Shiro knew they were bullshitting each other and it was all part of the game. “This must be kismet.”  
  
That bracing sensation seized Shiro again, raising goose bumps this time. “Here, put this on.”  
  
Lance looked miffed as Shiro draped his overcoat over his slimmer shoulders, the collar standing up high enough to block his primary scent glands. “I have a coat.”  
  
“Not to insult your coat, but it would look out of place in an establishment such as this.” Shiro personally thought the red jacket with the velvet lapels suited Lance, but it barely covered the tops of his thighs, and left parts of his chest and stomach hanging out as well when he wasn’t making an effort to clutch it closed.  
  
“Oh.” Lance allowed himself to be enveloped in dove grey cashmere. “Gotcha.”  
  
Billy Bob opened the door and they stepped into the marble-floored lobby, striding past multiple vases of elegant white flowers under a crystal chandelier, and that was when Shiro recognized the scent Lance had been putting out: it was ginger lilies. He naturally smelled like the flowers perfuming the vestibule this evening.  
  
“Wow.” Lance gaped around him at the neoclassical luxury as Shiro tried to unobtrusively hustle him through it. Some of the other guests gaped back at Lance as they reached the curving reception desk.  
  
“Stop fidgeting.” Shiro took Lance’s hand to keep him from flapping open the overcoat with his restlessness.  
  
“Good evening Mr. Shirogane.” The front desk clerk greeted him with impeccable professional bearing and a smile. If her hairstyle rode the razor’s edge between chic and outre it did not affect her deportment.  
  
“Good evening Cinda, have I received any messages?”  
  
“Yes sir, several.”  
  
Shiro let go of Lance’s hand to collect the messages from Cinda and sort through them. Most of them were from Lotor. Big surprise there. One of them was from Hawkins. Shiro frowned. That stubborn paterfamilias refused to accept the easy way out. He’d have to deal with the man more directly very soon.  
  
But for now, for the first time in quite a while, he had a distraction that did not come with any obligations that he was not equipped to repay.  
  
“Cinda, please instruct room service to send up champagne and strawberries.”  
  
The beta did not bat so much as an eyelash. “Of course, sir.”  
  
Shiro turned to Lance and found him gazing around at the decor in childlike wonder. Meanwhile, he had allowed the overcoat to fall open, leaving his wonderful abs on full display to the whole room.  
  
“Come on.”   
  
He took Lance by the hand again and marched him to the elevators. Just his luck, a middle-aged alpha couple already waited there. It was the Widow Dayak and her swain of the moment. They stared; Nanette Dayak in ill-disguised judgment, the man in undisguised lust.  
  
“Lovely evening,” said the man to Shiro, while leering at Lance.  
  
“Yes,” Shiro replied, letting a hint of possessive musk waft out. “It is, isn’t it?” If Lance wanted to take the older alpha up on his obvious interest, he could do so when Shiro was no longer paying for his time.  
  
The ornate bas-relief doors opened and Regris the elevator operator waved them aboard with gloved hands and a smile that was maybe just a little too delighted to see Shiro’s guest.  
  
“Look, it has seats!” Lance leaped into the elevator car and sprawled on a red padded seat like a kid at an amusement park.  
  
“It’s his first time in an elevator,” Shiro covered smoothly, following him in.  
  
Regris held the doors open for the other couple.   
  
“We’ll take the next one,” said Dayak, with a restraining hand on the man’s shoulder.   
  
Regris obediently closed the doors and pressed the switch to take them to the top floor, and Shiro wondered, not for the first time, if Regris was really doing anything that couldn’t be accomplished as easily by a passenger with a decent guide to the control station. He could see the gleam of Regris’s teeth in the mirrored panels inside the elevator cab.  
  
Regris pressed another button and the cab glided to a smooth stop. “Penthouse,” the beta announced, opening the doors.  
  
“Flossy.” Lance bestowed Shiro with a sultry look before preceding him off the elevator.  
  
Regris’s neck craned out of the elevator car to watch him go, until Shiro planted himself calmly in the way and raised an eyebrow.   
  
“That will be all Regris.”  
  
“Yes sir.” Regris retreated back to his station and left to pick up the other couple.  
  
Lance was leaning on the penthouse door when Shiro joined him, shoulders flush with the wood, hips jutted out so that the overcoat fell away from his lean body. Shiro stepped into his body space, grabbed him by the hips, and smoothly lifted him out of the way.  
  
“Holy cats, you’re strong!”  
  
Shiro just smiled and took out his key-card to let them in. He’d started working out in his early teens during physical therapy after needing titanium supports put into his right arm, and he hadn’t slacked off since.  
  
Lance let out a low whistle as he strutted ahead of him into the suite. “Classy digs.”  
  
Whoever had been responsible for decorating the suite had forgone the neoclassical design scheme in the rest of the hotel in favor of a more contemporary style, plush but sleek, with mixed texture fabrics and a jewel-toned color palette.  
  
“It’s comfortable.” Shiro brought his message cards over to the writing desk tucked against the wall divider separating the foyer from the living room.  
  
“It’s comfortable, he says.” Lance moved past him into the living room. “Hey, you’ve got a balcony too!” Shiro heard the terrace door open. “Look at the city lights! I bet you can see all the way to Santa Monica from up here in the daytime.”  
  
“I’ll take your word for it.”  
  
Warm, slim hands landed on Shiro’s shoulders. “Why don’t you come out and enjoy it with me?”  
  
“I don’t like heights.” Memories of a long drop and the agony of breaking bones tried to infringe on his present. He pushed the memories aside as he did most things that threatened his agenda.  
  
“You don’t like heights.”  
  
Here it comes. The expressions of sympathy, the attempts to get him to open up about it, the offers to help him get over it. Even the resolutely pragmatic Adam–   
  
“Why did you rent the penthouse if you don’t like heights?”  
  
That was not quite the rejoinder Shiro had been expecting.   
  
“Because it’s the best.” He turned halfway in his chair to find Lance looking back at him incredulously. “What is that look for? If hotels would put the penthouse on the first floor, I’d certainly prefer it, but they never do, so I just don’t go out on the terrace.” It was not an ideal solution, but Shiro refused to settle for anything less than the best when he had his choice, even if that meant he had to pay for an extra feature he couldn’t use.  
  
“Well then.” Lance shucked out of the overcoat and the red coat and laid them across the sofa. “I guess we’ll just have to find something to do in here.” He stalked back over on those block-heeled boots and stood over Shiro, who was still seated at the desk. “I’m all yours. What do you want to do with me?”  
  
Shiro raked his eyes over the young body standing close enough to touch. He was thin, on the verge of being too thin and probably not by choice, but his muscles looked wiry and strong, and his skin had the firm and unblemished glow that youth and avoidance of controlled substances could provide even in the absence of proper nourishment. Shiro wondered how long he’d been working on the street, and how he’d gotten there to begin with.  
  
“I didn’t really plan this out.” He raised his eyes up the long torso and elegant neck to look into Lance’s pretty face, framed by hair that could not possibly be his natural color. “How old are you?”  
  
Lance’s well-groomed eyebrows shot up in challenge. “I’m nineteen. I can’t prove it. But I am.”  
  
Shiro was inclined to believe he was telling the truth, mainly because he’d just admitted he wasn’t legally old enough to order champagne.  
  
“The drinking laws in this country are stupid,” Lance added for good measure.  
  
Shiro smirked. “We’re already in for a penny, I don’t think enjoying a glass of champagne is going to be the pound that cements your doom.”  
  
“Well, now you’re talking sensible.” Lance perched his perky bottom on the edge of the desk. “So, icebreakers.” Lance popped his coral red painted lips. “You already know what I do for a living. How about you?”  
  
This could be an entertaining diversion. “I’m an activist shareholder.”  
  
“So, what, you buy shares to create change?”  
  
Shiro felt a pleasant jolt of surprise. “More or less.” He’d expected a demand for him to explain that title, not for Lance to intuit the gist almost immediately. The omega was proving to be full of surprises.  
  
The suite’s doorbell chimed.  
  
“That’ll be our champagne,” Shiro said.  
  
Lance nodded. “I’ll get it.” He hopped off the desk and treated Shiro to a tantalizing view of his glutes working under those shorts as he gamboled over to let room service in.  
  
La-Sai, the room service attendant, walked in carrying a large silver platter, with the champagne chilling in a bucket and the strawberries presumably under the silver cloche. As always, there was also a single fresh flower in a bud vase on the tray. Shiro was pleased to see that it was a ginger lily.  
  
La-Sai’s green eyes bugged out at the sight of Lance in all his half-naked glory, but otherwise he kept his composure. “Where would you like the tray, serah?”  
  
Lance turned to Shiro. “Where do you want it?”   
  
He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Shiro imagined he must be used to just taking the box from the delivery boy and kicking the door shut.   
  
“Put it on the kitchen counter,” Shiro decided.  
  
“Very good sir.” La-Sai carefully set his cargo down on the granite counter top, then stood expectantly looking at Lance.  
  
Lance looked worried, then dashed over to Shiro and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I think he wants a tip.” His breath was warm. His unleashed natural scent combined with the perfume of the flower was beginning to create an intoxicating vapor in the room.  
  
He was also putting on quite the impromptu show for La-Sai, with his rear in the air.  
  
“Of course.” He peeled a ten out of his billfold, stood and handed it to La-Sai. “Here you are.” _Leave now_.  
  
“Thank you sir.” The beta accepted the bill and took his leave, quick as a dragonfly.  
  
Shiro walked over to the kitchenette and took the cloche off the strawberries. He freed the champagne bottle from the ice and took the foil and cage off in preparation to uncork it. “You can help yourself,” he said to Lance, who was hovering nearby.  
  
“Thanks.” Lance smiled and plucked up a large strawberry, took a bite and closed his eyes, humming in satisfaction.  
  
Shiro placed a bar towel over the bottle and twisted the cork out without taking his eyes off Lance. He poured into two long-stemmed flutes and handed one over to the omega. “Cheers.” He sipped, and tasted floral and berry notes as the bubbles pearled up the sides of the glass.  
  
“Salud.” Lance took a tiny sip of champagne. “It tickles!”  
  
Shiro smiled over the rim of his glass. “It’s a sparkling wine, it’s supposed to tickle. Try it with a bite of strawberry.” Shiro demonstrated, taking a bite of the berry and chasing it with a sip of the champagne.  
  
Lance followed his lead. “Mmm.” He licked his lips with a healthy pink tongue. Whatever shellac he was using, that lipstick was not budging. “That’s good!” Shiro wondered what it would take to smudge that artificial pout.  
  
Across the room, his phone rang from the depths of the overcoat pocket. It was the ringtone he’d assigned to Lotor, and if Shiro didn’t answer it, he could expect a visit within the hour.  
  
“I have to get that.” Lotor would want to know when to expect his car back, and probably try to cajole Shiro into a boy’s night out in the bargain. Ordinarily he could tolerate his lawyer’s essays at alpha male bonding, but he suddenly found that he did not appreciate the thought of Lotor anywhere near this omega. “Why don’t you find something to watch on the television while I take care of this?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Shiro retrieved the phone and took it to the parlor adjacent to the living room to pace. He could still see Lance from there, courtesy of the open floor plan.  
  
“Shirogane speaking.”  
  
 _“Shiro! You bailed on us, old man. When are you coming back with my car?”_  
  
Typical of Lotor to open the conversation with a subtle dig at Shiro’s prematurely silver hair. Shiro never rose to the bait but Lotor never gave up casting the fly.  
  
“I’m afraid I’m already in for the evening. I’m sure I can find a hotel employee who would be willing to assist Kai with returning the car to you if you need it back tonight.” More than willing most likely. Shiro was certain any one of the hotel’s night staff would be thrilled to get behind the wheel of the Jaguar, since there was no way in hell he was letting any of them drive the hired limo. He knew Kai’s supplemental liability insurance was paid to the eyeteeth, since he’d seen to it himself. He had no such guarantee about the hotel staff.   
  
In the living room, Lance spread a pashmina throw blanket from the couch onto the floor and settled down on it with his glass of champagne and the entire bowl of strawberries. He’d found the television remote and begun channel surfing. Shiro couldn’t find it in himself to begrudge the omega what was probably badly needed sustenance.  
  
 _“No need for that, I’ll send one of my drivers out for it.”_ Lotor sounded irritated.  
  
“I’ll call the front desk to make sure the doorman is expecting your driver.” It would probably be Narti, Lotor’s silent shadow. He wouldn’t trust anyone less than her to retrieve one of his prized status symbols.  
  
Lance shucked off his boots. He’d settled on an episode of “I Love Lucy” and proceeded to watch it while lying on his back, long brown legs cycling in the air. On the screen, Lucy was trying to sneak into Ricky’s Tropicana Club like she did nearly every episode, this time by infiltrating a conga line. The conga dancers high-kicked and gestured elegantly as they wound around a dais where Ricky Ricardo sang a song about a Jezebel. Lucy flailed among them, clearly enjoying herself but not elegantly. Lance laughed, loud and long.  
  
 _“Shiro, do you have a guest?”_ And why wasn’t I invited, went unsaid but implied.  
  
“It’s the television,” Shiro said, which was true in a way.  
  
 _“You’re watching a sitcom?”_  
  
“Why is that so surprising to you?”  
  
 _“I thought you were only into highbrow entertainment.”_  
  
Shiro supposed he had a reputation for being discerning in his leisure pursuits. Most of his associates would be underwhelmed if they were to discover how he’d actually acquired his tastes. Except for Lotor, who really should know better.   
  
“Shakespeare also played to the peanut gallery, you know.”  
  
 _“Well, you’re obviously in a mood. I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting.”_  
  
“Good night Lotor.”  
  
Shiro hung up on him and made a quick call to the front desk as he stepped into the living room, to let them know that Narti would be coming for the car. He settled back against chenille upholstery as Cinda assured him it would be taken care of.  
  
His entry into the room had not gone unnoticed. Heavily-lined blue eyes observed him from an upside down position that Shiro found absurdly sexy.  
  
Lance rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself up from a crawl to a knee-walk. Shiro remained motionless on the couch, momentarily content to observe as Lance pressed himself between Shiro’s parted knees. He slowly undid Shiro’s fly, pausing and glancing up from under sooty eyelashes periodically to ensure he had permission. Shiro watched the concentration on his face, and the subtle play of emotions as he realized that the Italian silk boxer briefs were going to require Shiro’s active cooperation to remove.  
  
Lance met Shiro’s eyes as he stood. Shiro felt as if he could disappear into blue, like diving into a grotto. Their gaze was broken as Lance pulled the scrap of white cotton over his head, revealing his lean pectorals to the air conditioning. His nipples immediately tautened up like butterscotch chips. He sat astride Shiro’s lap, and this time Shiro did not resist the urge to skim his palms up his long waist. Lance’s skin was smooth and warm to the touch.  
  
“Tell me what you want.” Lance’s voice was low, almost husky.  
  
“Tell me what you’ll offer,” Shiro countered. Oh, how he wanted, but it was always better to make the other party lay their cards on the table first when entering into a negotiation.  
  
“Everything,” Lance said, “but I won’t take a knot.”  
  
“I won’t grant a knot,” Shiro said, “so there’s no conflict between us.”  
  
He wondered why the omega hadn’t mentioned a bite. Perhaps he was assuming that Shiro was enough of a gentleman not to attempt it. After all, the knot and the bite usually went together. Only the most base of scoundrels would try to bite without first applying a knot to ease the pain by way of endorphins.   
  
It was unusual enough for Lance to have asked not to knot. Omega males were infamously reputed to be promiscuous due to the fact that they could only get pregnant during a heat. Shiro had dated enough omega males that he knew the 'knot slut' stereotype was an exaggeration, but it was still a rather odd request, especially from someone in Lance’s line of work.  
  
Lance climbed off Shiro’s lap, undid the safety pin on his shorts and stepped out of them. He was wearing a g-string underneath that left almost nothing to the imagination. Gracefully he dropped to his knees again and reached forward to loosen Shiro’s tie and unbutton his vest and shirt. Slim fingers caressed Shiro’s sides and crept behind him to massage his shoulder blades, bracelets lightly grazing his flesh as pearly teeth and a heavily rouged mouth worked on his nipples. Lance kissed a path down Shiro’s abdomen. He mouthed Shiro’s cock through his underwear and looked up with a question in his eyes.  
  
Shiro obligingly lifted his rear off the couch, allowing the omega to drag his pants and underwear down his thighs. Lance sighed, a noise that sounded almost like contentment, as he fondled Shiro’s sac. He took one of Shiro’s balls in his mouth and gently sucked. Shiro’s cock, which had already begun to swell in interest with the proceedings, rose to meet his belly. Lance released his precious mouthful, smiling with a self-satisfied air, and grasped the stiffening cock, lapping at the blushing head. He made eye contact with Shiro and maintained it while taking the entire head into his warm, wet mouth.  
  
Shiro sucked in a gasp as Lance closed his eyes and took the rest of his cock down his throat. Up and down he worked, his gag reflex either desensitized or nonexistent, giving Shiro easily the most skillfully administered blow job of his life. Shiro’s hands found their way into shiny strawberry-blond hair, and now there was no longer any doubt it was a wig, he could feel the mesh cap as his fingers tightened around too-slippery strands. He tugged, and Lance pulled off of his cock with a slurp.  
  
“You ready for more?” Lance asked through wet, swollen lips.  
  
Shiro nodded.  
  
Lance finished freeing Shiro from the bottom half of his suit, then sat back on his haunches and reached for the front of his own panties. What Shiro had assumed was just a lacy panel barely covering his crotch actually had a pocket in it, from which Lance removed a foil wrapper. Clever. Lance tore open the wrapper and withdrew a condom. Shiro recognized the brand. They were ultra thins with a knot-inhibiting band on the edge, designed so alphas could safely have sex with betas, which this omega was evidently re-purposing for his own uses. Lance reached under his panties with one hand and came back up with antibody-rich slick, which he deposited inside the tip of the condom. He looked up, caught Shiro watching him intently, and grinned. He rolled the now-lubricated condom onto Shiro’s stiff dick with deft hands.  
  
“Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to cum.”  
  
“I wasn’t worried.” Shiro had actually used these condoms before, he knew how they worked.  
  
“Where do you want– ”  
  
“Here.”  
  
Shiro rose off the couch and hauled Lance over to the blanket he’d so fortuitously laid down in front of the television, dropping to his knees while holding Lance against his chest with one arm. “I Love Lucy” had ended and now an infomercial was trying to sell him a power juicer. He snatched up the remote with his free hand, calling up the menu and quickly scrolling through music channels until he found one playing Sarasate.   
  
He gave Lance a gentle push forward. Lance took the hint and dropped to all fours, bracelets jingling softly. Shiro ran his hands over slim hips and the soft skin of his buttocks before hooking his fingers in the g-string and pulling it down. Slick ran down Lance’s inner thighs, the spicy-sweet smell of ginger lilies filling the room. Shiro grasped Lance’s hip with one hand and cupped the other between his thighs, fingers seeking the source of the fragrant slick. He found the opening and inserted two fingers. Lance sighed softly and raised his ass for better access.  
  
Omegas were generally not as difficult to prepare as betas, being built to withstand a knot. Shiro found Lance already quite pliable, so he grasped his cock, lined up and began to push in. Lance gave out soft breathy whines as Shiro pressed into him, bottoming out on the third long slide. The thin membrane of the condom allowed Lance’s body heat to permeate through easily, and Lance’s thoughtful gift of the slick added that indescribable wet feeling. Shiro rotated his hips experimentally, enjoying the sensation of having his most sensitive body part so thoroughly encased. Lance moaned wantonly. Shiro began to fuck into him in earnest, quickly finding a rhythm.  
  
One of the advantages for the partner of someone wearing this kind of condom was that the alpha could last much longer. Eventually Shiro felt Lance tighten, then spasming contractions as he crooned out something in Spanish. Shiro thrust right through it, until finally he felt the pressure building behind his own navel, his balls tightening up almost painfully. He held Lance’s hips still as his pelvis smacked against his rear harder and more erratically, Lance wailing in abandon the whole time, and then he came and all of the tension was released. It was not the hardest or best orgasm of his life, thanks to the condom inhibiting his ability to knot, but it was still damn good and he’d needed it more than he’d realized.  
  
It wasn’t that Shiro avoided sexual encounters, far from it. It was that the sex Shiro usually had came with constraints attached, constraints he had to always be mindful of. This was as close to carefree as Shiro had felt in some time, even with the omega’s insistence on no knotting, because this omega had thought of all of the contingencies first so that Shiro wouldn’t have to. He was so relaxed that the removal of the condom and the rest of his clothes passed in his consciousness like dissolving transitions in a movie. He even invited the omega to sleep in the bedroom with him, something he would never have dreamed of doing a mere hour before, and then fell asleep himself shortly after his head hit the pillow.


	2. The Reflex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Shiro strike a deal. Being on easy street doesn't mean everything is going to be easy. Lance meets Hunk, and then Hunk meets Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for all of the wonderful comments and kudos! ForeverTumbling, choutarouootori and author chan is bae, you all made my day with your comments!

Lance dozed through the sounds of a shower running and muffled voices of people talking one room over. He’d had to learn to sleep through fighting neighbors and traffic noise, so his subconscious just counted its blessings and let him glide back into dreamland.  
  
It was the smell of food that finally woke him completely. There was no mistaking the mouth-watering smell of real bacon. Lance opened his eyes as his memory helpfully caught him up with recent events. Hot car. Even hotter rich guy. Penthouse suite, fresh strawberries, and that rarest of occasions, a real orgasm while working. A dry one, but still: real was real, and he should know.  
  
Lance was good at faking an orgasm. He had to be in his line of work. It wasn’t just good business to never forget he was dealing with the tender egos of beta males and alphas at their most vulnerable, it was survival. It wasn’t just about being convincing with the moaning and groaning either, although that was an important aspect of the theatrical portion of his job. He also had excellent control of his pelvic floor muscles thanks to salsa and belly dancing, and could squeeze in rapid enough bursts to fool most clients. It just hadn’t been necessary to resort to that with the guy last night.  
  
Shiro. He said his name was Shiro.  
  
Lance sat up in soft sheets that pooled around his bare waist like a slinky waterfall. The bedroom was a study in satiny black and shiny chrome surfaces, relieved only by a few purpleheart wood furniture pieces and dark blue silk in the carpet and upholstery. Morning smog lightly wreathed the L.A. skyline visible through a huge privacy-tinted window overlooking the sitting area.  
  
Lance slid out of the king-sized bed naked as the day he was born. He found his working clothes right where he’d left them: hastily folded on top of the cushioned bench at the foot of the bed. A wisp of steam carried citrusy green chypre notes from a doorway that turned out to lead into a massive bathroom. Smoke-grey ceramic tile and oiled teak framed the space taken up by double sinks, an enormous soaking tub, and a walk-in shower bigger than a bus shelter.  
  
Lance stumbled over to the sinks and checked out his reflection in the mirror. His makeup was looking very Renoir this morning, except for the lip stain which had barely faded. He scrubbed his face with the luxury soap provided by the hotel. A fluffy white bathrobe with the hotel logo on it dangled from the towel rack. Lance took it off its hook and sniffed deeply. He smelled green chypre from the hotel toiletries mingled with something woody, musky, deep and resinous like oud. Alpha. Shiro had used this bathrobe. Lance pulled it on to cover his nakedness before venturing out of the bedroom suite.  
  
“Something can always go wrong.” Shiro sat at the dining room table with his back to the bedroom door, a newspaper in one hand and a cell phone to his ear. “That rush of adrenaline is how you know you’re alive.” He’d changed the velour robe that Lance was now wearing for a black dressing robe. It was probably silk. He seemed to favor that material.  
  
Lance wondered if Shiro had noticed he’d entered the room.  
  
“By the way, did Narti tell you about your car?”  
  
Lance paused.  
  
“It corners like its on rails.” Shiro chuckled and ended the call.  
  
Oh yeah, he definitely noticed.   
  
“Um, morning.” Lance thought it was a good one. Hopefully Shiro agreed.  
  
Shiro turned in his chair, still smiling. “Your natural hair color suits you much better.”  
  
Lance blushed like a damn ingenue. “Thanks.”  
  
“Why don’t you join me for some breakfast? I wasn’t sure what you’d like so I ordered a little of everything.”  
  
“Thank you.”   
  
Lance approached the long table, where platters covered in silver domes awaited alongside a thermal carafe of coffee and a glass pitcher of orange juice. He wondered if Shiro was going to take the cost of breakfast out of his tab. When Shiro uncovered the domes to reveal bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs, croissants and fresh fruit, he figured it might be worth it even if he did. He immediately picked up a rasher of bacon and started munching.  
  
“Did you sleep well?”  
  
“I did.” Lance finished the bacon and plucked up a croissant. “You didn’t have to let me sleep past your wake up call.”  
  
“It was no trouble for me.” Shiro gazed up at him, silvery eyes agleam with bemusement. “You’re welcome to sit down.”  
  
Lance perched sideways on a chair and started pulling his croissant apart. “I can be out of your hair before you go off on your entrepreneurial way today.”  
  
“You seem awfully eager to be off on yours.” Shiro set aside the Wall Street Journal he’d been leafing through.  
  
“Yeah, well.” Lance polished off the croissant and picked up a pancake. “Time is money, and money only sleeps when I do.”  
  
“I can relate.” Shiro poured aromatic coffee into white china cups and passed one of them to Lance. “Tell me something. How does someone with such obvious drive and savvy as yourself wind up in such a mercurial line of work?”  
  
Lance swallowed his bite of pancake. “Not too many steady employers are willing to hire under the table,” he said.  
  
“Ah.” Shiro sipped black coffee. “I thought Cubans were exempt from having to seek a work visa?”  
  
“Past tense.” Lance poured sugar into his coffee. “My timing was bad. I should’ve gotten on the chug that was leaving a few months earlier.”  
  
“What stopped you?”  
  
Lance shrugged. “I wanted to complete my bachillerato.”   
  
They finished breakfast in a quiet reflection that felt like the second movement of a symphony. When Shiro got up from the table, Lance tossed back the last of his orange juice and followed. He found Shiro in front of the bedroom mirror buttoning up his vest. He’d already been wearing the shirt, pants and shoes under his dressing gown. Shiro pulled an ash-colored band of fabric around his neck and began to struggle with it. Lance stepped into his personal space and took the silk tie out of his fluttering hands.  
  
“Let me.” Lance’s hands moved through the motions of a Kelvin knot on rote. Maybe this little service would cover breakfast.  
  
“Where did you learn how to tie a necktie?”   
  
Lance honestly wasn’t all that surprised that Shiro was surprised. Male omegas were usually exempted from the ‘tie’ part of any ‘jacket and tie’ dress code, on account of wearing a necktie blocked an omega’s primary scent glands. It felt restrictive on the sensitive glands, but that wasn’t why they were exempted from the social nicety. Can’t have omegas walking around incognito in public, what would the world come to.  
  
“I fucked a couturier for cheesecake and mineral water and he was so overcome with gratitude he taught me everything he knew.”  
  
Lance glanced up to the sight of the most glorious bitchface he had ever beheld. He sighed.  
  
“My abuelo was a tailor, he let me help him put his tie on before leaving for work every day.” Lance finished adjusting the knot and patted it. “Perfect. Is it okay if I take a swim in your tub before you pay me and I leave?” If there had been a moment for subtlety, that moment had flown.  
  
“That’s fine.” Shiro looked at his reflection in the mirror over Lance’s shoulder. “Very nicely done in fact.”  
  
“I aim to please.”  
  
Lance returned to the bathroom and filled the giant tub with steamy water and chypre scented bubbles. He found waterproof headphones lying on the tub’s tiled ledge, so after washing his hair he put them on and leaned back in the warm sudsy water for some listening enjoyment.  
  
Hey, he might get another opportunity like this, never.  
  
♬ “The reflex is a lonely child who’s waiting by the paaark! The reflex is in charge of finding treasure in the daaark! And watching over lucky clover, isn’t that bizaaa– ” ♬ He happened to open his eyes right at that moment to find Shiro standing over him smirking indulgently. “Heh. Why try to figure out Simon Le Bon’s lyrics when you can just belt ‘em out?”  
  
“A question I ask myself daily.”  
  
“You know, you could’ve just left the money on the dresser.” Lance had no intention of robbing the guy so long as he stayed on the level like he’d been thus far.  
  
“I could have.” Shiro carefully sat on the only dry spot of tile around the tub. “But first I have a business proposition for you.”  
  
Lance set aside the headphones. “What do you need?” Quickie before work?  
  
Quickie at work? It wouldn’t be the first time Lance had been hired to deliver a little afternoon delight.  
  
“I’m going to be in town for the rest of the week,” Shiro said. “I’ll be attending various social functions while I’m here and I need an escort.”  
  
Also not a first for Lance, though he’d never been squired to the sort of affluent parties a guy like Shiro no doubt attended. “Sure, I can be your arm candy. If we’re going someplace with a fancy dress code I’m gonna need some nicer threads, though.”  
  
“That won’t be a problem. I can also arrange to have any bath products and cosmetics you might require delivered here to the hotel.”  
  
Lance’s eyes widened. “Here? Like, as if I was staying here?”  
  
“If you agree to take the job, then yes you would be staying here.”  
  
Lance processed that statement, blinking slowly.  
  
“Lance?” Shiro still looked calm, like he hadn’t just done the conversational equivalent of feeding 3D graphics into a Tandy 2000.  
  
“Back up a second here.” Lance might be nixing his chances, but he had to get this out of the way. “You’re a hot rich dude.”  
  
Shiro just pursed his lips like, ‘yes I am, your point is?’  
  
“You’re probably on some kind of ‘most eligible bachelors’ list or something, I bet you could get high class omegas to go with you for free. What do you need me for?” This better not be some kind of eyes wide shut thing. Lance didn’t book orgies. He’d heard stories from some of the others, clients got carried away and bad shit happened. Lance didn’t want any risk of someone accidentally-on-purpose forgetting his ‘no knot’ policy.  
  
“Those ‘high class omegas’ you speak of have high expectations of a long-term future with me if I escort them to even so much as the powder room,” Shiro replied. “I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that there will be permanent obligations incurred by appearing in public with me. I need this week to run smoothly and I want a professional to help me do it.”  
  
Anticipation tingled in Lance’s belly. “Well, if you’re gonna take me out of circulation for a whole week, it’s gonna cost.”  
  
“Naturally.” Shiro stood and paced to the other end of the tub. “Give me an estimate.”  
  
“Six more days and nights...” Lance leaned back in the soapy water doing some quick and dirty mental multiplication. “Fifteen grand.”  
  
Shiro raised an eyebrow. “You rounded up.”  
  
“You haven’t paid me for last night yet,” Lance reminded him.  
  
“You’re also getting room and board plus a clothes allowance,” Shiro countered. “Ten grand.”  
  
“I’m a fabulous lay.” Lance put the purr in his voice. “You won’t find an ass like mine anywhere else. Twelve grand.”  
  
“Done.”  
  
“¡Alabao!” Lance felt like he might fly into a million pieces he was so excited. He slid down under the warm water of the tub to collect himself.  
  
“Lance?” Shiro’s voice carried through the water with a slightly muted pitch. “Does that mean yes?”  
  
Lance surfaced, squinting through soap bubbles and swiping water away from his eyes. “Yes!”  
  
Shiro laughed and handed Lance a fluffy towel as he emerged from the bathtub like Venus on the half shell. Lance wrapped the towel around his hair and put the bathrobe back on as he followed Shiro’s meandering path to the front door.  
  
“I’ll be gone most of the day, but when I get back we’re going out to dinner, so you’ll need something appropriate to wear by then.” Shiro handed Lance a roll of cash. “And by appropriate I mean, nothing provocative.”  
  
“You mean stuffy.”  
  
“I mean refined.” Shiro picked up his briefcase and put his hand on the doorknob.  
  
“I’m gonna treat you like gold,” Lance promised. “You’re gonna wanna pack me up in your suitcase and take me home.”  
  
Shiro turned a serious look on Lance from the open doorway. “Twelve grand, six days, and after that Lance, I will be leaving here without you.”  
  
Lance held his peace as he watched Shiro lock up behind him. His moment of injured pride didn’t last long. He could hardly keep the smile from easing back onto his face.  
  
“I’m here now papi chulo, and I will be for the next six days.”  
  
Shrieking like a child, he ran into the bedroom and jumped on the bed.  
  
“Twelve!” Jump. “Thousand!” Bounce. “Dollars!” Lance fell backwards and let the euro top mattress cradle his weight. With a nest egg of twelve thousand dollars, he could be a lot more picky about which jobs he took. He might not even need to hit the boulevard for months, and he could cover the rent too. “Holy shit, I’ve gotta call Keith.”  
  
Lance sat up so abruptly the towel fell off his head. He snatched up the landline phone on the nightstand, some businessy-looking corded thing with an LED display and a speakerphone button, and probably way more other features than the much-abused little Trimline handset in the room Lance shared with Keith. He dialed and waited impatiently while the phone rang ten times and disconnected because Morvok was too cheap to spring for voice mail. He dialed and waited again.  
  
After the eighth ring on the second try, the phone clanged and Keith’s voice sleepily muttered, _“‘sup?”_ Lance visualized him with his flannel sleep mask pushed up on his forehead, having seen him wake up like that many times before.  
  
“You’ll never guess where I am.” Lance bounced excitedly on the bed. “Go on, guess.”  
  
_“Exposition Park.”_  
  
“No.”  
  
_“Magic Castle.”_  
  
Lance whined. “No.”  
  
_“Are you stranded in Griffith Park again?”_  
  
“No Keith, I’m in the penthouse of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in fucking Beverly Hills!”  
  
_“Damn.”_ Keith yawned loudly. _“So that guy really was loaded, huh?”_  
  
“Like a revolver, and get this.” Lance clutched the phone cord in his other hand. “He wants me to stay with him for the rest of the week and he’s gonna pay me twelve G’s.”  
  
_“No fucking way!”_  
  
“Yes way!”  
  
_“I gave that guy to you! Wait, is he one of those dudes who never showers and like, weaves pot holders out of his pubic hair?”_  
  
“No, he’s a silver fox.” Lance got the impression that Shiro wasn’t actually even forty yet, but it was hard to tell with some guys and Shiro was one of those super rare men who seemed ageless without the tell-tale signs of plastic surgery. One thing was for sure though: his carpet matched the drapes.  
  
_“Then he’s one of those dudes with a creepy request who won’t stop asking even after you already told him you don’t do that?”_  
  
“No, standard suck and fuck.” Lance decided not to mention the part where he came too. If Keith even believed him, he’d start in on why he should stop the job right then and there because it was getting too personal. “He even agreed to the rule without arguing about it.”  
  
_“What’s wrong with him then?”_  
  
“Nothing’s wrong with him, he’s just an extreme commitment-phobe.”  
  
_“Did he pay you yet?”_  
  
“Only for last night, I’ll get the rest at the end of the week.”  
  
_“Then that’s what’s wrong with him.”_  
  
“I don’t think he’s gonna cheat me. In fact, I am so confident that he’s not gonna cheat me that I’m gonna leave the rent money for you to pick up at the front desk.”  
  
_“That’s not confidence, that’s just using common sense.”_  
  
“Tomato, tomahtoe.” Lance played with the phone cord. “I have to get clothes to wear to dinner tonight, something omega-chic that he’s paying for. Where am I gonna find swag like that? I don’t know anything about Beverly Hills.” The only part of the greater Los Angeles area Lance was really familiar with was Hollywood, but Keith was a native Angeleno.  
  
_“With a sugar daddy’s money?”_ Keith clicked his tongue. _“Rodeo Drive, hunty.”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Getting dressed to go shopping was an exercise in temptation. Lance had discovered Shiro’s clothes in the hotel suite’s walk-in closet. Crisp white shirts, soft wool slacks, paper thin trouser socks, shoes made with real leather, underclothes made out of fucking silk, and more. Lance had not been granted permission to wear any of it and had no desire to test the limits of Shiro’s generosity just yet.  
  
So, he put his working clothes back on sans the wig and bracelets, and tied his red coat sarong-like around his waist in an optimistic attempt to disguise the booty shorts and maybe also hide his belly button. At least he smelled like the hotel soap now instead of his botanica perfume. He found a blank envelope on Shiro’s writing desk, separated the monthly rent from the wad of cash Shiro had handed out, put it in the envelope and sealed it, and wrote Keith’s name on it before sticking the rest of the money back in the homemade billfold attached to the inside of his right boot.  
  
Then he sauntered to the elevator hoping attitude could make him look like a rock star instead of a streetwalker out of his element. The elevator operator was a different guy from the smiley dude the night before. This guy was an older, solidly built beta who tried not to openly stare at Lance and mostly failed in that endeavor. Lance offered him a cheeky smile before swaggering across the lobby to the front desk.  
  
He passed a tall blocky alpha man in a very nice suit speaking to an older omega gentleman who was translating for an even older alpha lady who was speaking castellano with that distinctive lisp that Lance had only ever heard before in movies. He was tempted to linger, just to benignly eavesdrop on more of that three way conversation, but he had made a promise to acquire clothes by a strict deadline and besides it was really none of his business. He stepped up to the curving desk, and a different beta clerk than the night before.  
  
The blonde looked up with the dreamy expression of the sort of person who would probably rather be reading but she had to go to work to support her book habit. Lance’s sister Rachel was a lot like that. He wondered if Rachel had gone on to university yet like she’d wanted to do.  
  
“Can I help you, serah?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m gonna leave this here for Keith Kogane, he’s gonna pick it up.” Lance handed her the envelope. “Don’t let anybody else open it.”  
  
“Of course, serah.”  
  
Lance looked into her freckled face and faraway eyes. She was like Luna Lovegood: hotel clerk edition. That meant there was probably a badass lurking somewhere under that unassuming exterior. “Good,” he said, and turned to leave.  
  
“Miss Leifsdottir, are you familiar with that guest?” Lance heard behind him, before he walked out the door into a bright, sunny day.  
  
Lance knew Rodeo Drive was across the street and dead ahead because he’d mapped it on the room’s dedicated tablet (the room had a fucking dedicated tablet) before leaving. He knew it was a luxury shopping district, thanks to Keith who knew all sorts of useful shit about La-La Land. What he hadn’t quite prepared himself for was to see a freaking Tiffany’s looming on the right as he navigated the crosswalk.   
  
Tiffany’s! This was like all of his Holly Golightly dreams come true. Oh no, he was so not dressed for a trip into Tiffany’s, he wasn’t even dressed well enough to look in the display window holding a Starbucks. If he got tossed out of there because of some dress code he couldn’t take it, no. He could wait until after he got his first nice outfit and then go over there.  
  
Look, there was Christian Dior on his left. Not a department store selling knockoff Dior. It was Christian Dior, the store, just chilling on the corner selling nothing but Christian Dior, probably taken straight off the backs of models fresh off the catwalk. There was Jimmy Choo’s the shoe store presumably selling nothing but Jimmy Choo's. Louis Vuitton, didn’t they make luggage? Maybe he’d drop in there later too. If Shiro made good on his promise, then Lance would need storage options befitting his new clothes.   
  
Lance wasn’t sure which store to go into first. He crossed Dayton Way, passing a shiny metal statue of a naked lady’s torso, just like the Viaje Fantástico in Plaza Vieja that he’d seen on a school trip one time, except not because this woman was missing most of her body along with the fork and the rooster. See? He fit right in here among the throngs of mostly preppie-dressed people, some of whom were pointing at him.  
  
What Lance needed was a boutique. One of those privately owned stores selling a little of everything with manager-owners who didn’t have to worry about store policy and didn’t keep security on staff. He also was starting to feel the need to get off the street. He hadn’t felt this exposed since his first night working the Walk of Fame as Keith’s protégé.   
  
Lance noticed one of two French doors propped open ahead of him on the sidewalk, which in his peripatetic experience was a signal that a store was actively trolling for some foot traffic. As he drew closer, he noticed the sign over the doors said KRAL ZERA. Since it was not a brand name he’d ever heard of, he’d bet the money in his boot it was some sort of personal prosperity invocation for the boutique’s owner. The grungier parts of L.A. were full of flash-in-the-pan vanity stores just like this.   
  
Okay, maybe not just exactly like this. A blast of air conditioning carried the smells of expensive perfumes and the aldehydes of new clothes out through the open door. Intrigued, Lance strolled inside.  
  
Man, this store was really committed to a color theme. Everything was deep violet, fragile lavender, creamy white or palest grey. Basically, if it wasn’t purple it was neutral, and a lot of the separates were clearly meant to be layered, as demonstrated on the mannequins in each section. The palette was too cool for Lance’s skin tone, but he might be able to get away with the cream, maybe in one of the houndstooth patterns.  
  
The store was decorated with dried flowers and prickly cacti. Interesting choice. Three women turned at Lance’s entrance and from the way they followed his movements around the store it was obvious to him that all three were involved with the store in some way. Maybe one of them was the owner, but he kind of doubted it because none of them had bothered to approach him the way a shop owner would.   
  
While they were examining him, he was examining them through his peripheral vision and glimpses in the full length mirrors placed strategically around the store. He’d been kicked out of a few stores in his time working the streets, it saved a body from having to run from the popo to recognize the signs early.  
  
One lady sitting on the ‘won’t you have a Diet Coke’ couch like she didn’t have anything better to do (maybe she didn’t, this store was way too void of customers for three salespeople to be working the floor) wore an asymmetrical hairdo, from behind which she fixed Lance with one gimlet eye. A blonde wearing fishtail braids over each shoulder clutched her pearls from behind the cash register. Like, literally, she was wearing a strand of saltwater pearls around her neck, and she reached up and clutched the strand with one stiletto-manicured hand. The youngest of the three, sporting one of those trendy braided updos people tried to copy off the internet, looked up from messing with an arrangement of dried flowers (as if that was going to make them any less dead) to spear Lance with the ol’ up and down sneer.  
  
As long as one of these bitches sold him a damn outfit, they could sneer until the world burned down. Lance had a trained eye for menswear, but he knew next to nothing about omega haute couture, so unfortunately he needed their assistance.  
  
“May I help you?” said Lady Sneers-a-Lot.  
  
“Yeah,” Lance said, then remembered he was in supposedly polite company. “Yes please. I’m looking for something to wear to dinner.” What did Shiro tell him? “Something refined.”  
  
“I don’t think we have anything that would fit you,” said Lady Sneers-a-Lot. Killer Claws came over to flank her.  
  
Lance knew he could make just about anything fit him through the magic of safety pins. Ooh, or maybe a needle and thread if the hotel had such supplies on hand (he bet they did). He walked over to the mannequin wearing the outfit he thought he could pull off, the cream houndstooth open cardigan over a cream tunic and grey houndstooth leggings.  
  
“How much is this?”  
  
Lady Sneers-a-Lot turned to Killer Claws. “How much is this, Ladnok?”  
  
“It’s very expensive, Gnov.” said Ladnok.  
  
Gnov turned back to Lance. “It’s very expensive,” she said, as if Lance hadn’t heard her partner in crime because hello, he was standing right there.  
  
“I realize I’m a little underdressed right now,” Lance said, and he heard Gimlet Eye snort behind him, “but I do have money to spend here.”  
  
“We just don’t have anything for you,” said Gnov, shrugging tragically. “I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”  
  
“You need to leave now,” said Ladnok, making little shooing motions with her murderous red nails.  
  
As Lance left, he reflected on the strange and contradictory feeling that it was actually more dignified to have to run from the police. He untied his red coat from around his waist and pulled it close around his torso as he walked back to the hotel with his head down. Now he was going to have to try to contact Shiro and beg to use some of his clothes just to go on one shopping errand. Shit, did he even have Shiro’s cell phone number? No. No, he did not.  
  
Lance passed the doorman on his way in – different doorman than the previous night, older fellow, less with the titillated staring – and was halfway to the elevator when he nearly collided with a broad chest encased in, if he wasn’t much mistaken, Ralph Lauren, but the yellow tie looked like a department store house brand.  
  
Hey, Lance might not be fashion plate material himself, but thanks to Pipo he knew from alpha and beta men’s suits.  
  
“Excuse me serah, may I help you?”  
  
Oh, not this shit again. “I’m just going to my room”  
  
“You’re a guest here?”  
  
The owner of the nice suit possessed one of the least overbearing alpha scents Lance had ever encountered, like coconut milk fresh from the green fruit. Lance glanced up into a face as brown as his own, and an expression of deep concern, but he knew better than to assume that concern was for him.   
  
“I’m with Shiro. Takashi Shirogane.”  
  
“Mister Shirogane didn’t sign in a guest on the front desk ledger.”  
  
Behind Big, Dark and Frowny the elevator doors opened and what appeared to be a shift change occurred, and who should be coming on but the hound dog from the night before. “He should remember me,” Lance pointed at the guy. “He took us up to the penthouse last night.”  
  
Big, Dark and Frowny, who was probably somewhere in the management hierarchy for this fine establishment, looked behind him. “Regris.” He did not raise his voice, yet it carried. “Come over here please.”  
  
Regris came over. As soon as he saw Lance that doofy grin started to take over his features, but he managed to wipe it off his face before turning to the manager dude. “Yes sir?”  
  
“Do you know this omega?”  
  
“Yes sir.” Regris lowered his chin, and his tone, as he leaned closer to his boss. “He’s with Mister Shirogane.”  
  
“See?” Lance rocked back and forth on his heels. “Are we square?”  
  
“Let’s go to my office and have a chat.”  
  
“Shiro’s gonna be pissed off if you kick me out.”  
  
Big Manager Dude took Lance gently by the arm. “We’re just going to my office.”  
  
“I’m just putting that out there.”  
  
Big Manager Dude sighed as if Lance was the one thing standing between him and eternal contentment for the rest of his days. Lance knew what that kind of sigh sounded like because his mother had one just like it, and she’d explained it to him.  
  
Lance was ushered into an office with a large maple desk and hutch, and armchairs upholstered in lemon yellow twill. A potted banana leaf plant sat under the window, reaching green leafy fronds toward the light coming in through the slatted blinds. The room gave the overall impression of a cool reprieve from the industrious hive of activity outside.  
  
“Sit.” Big Manager Dude gestured to a seat across from his desk as he turned to the hutch and loosened the lid on a thermal carafe. “Coffee?”  
  
“Sure.” Lance was not one to turn down free refreshments if they were coming from a benign source. He still thought this guy might kick him out, but he didn’t think he’d poison him.  
  
Big Manager Dude poured steaming coffee into two mugs, one of which was a 16 ounce that said “ _I’m not bossy, I just have the best ideas_ ,” the other of which was a 12 ounce with the hotel’s logo on it.  
  
“Would you like sugar or milk?”  
  
“No thank you.” Lance wasn’t feeling too sweet at the moment. He felt so full of vinegar that he was sure milk would curdle in his mouth.  
  
Big Manager Dude passed Lance the 12 ounce mug and sat on the edge of his own desk. They both sipped. It was really good coffee. Big Manager Dude was hoarding the primo stuff in here.  
  
“So, what’s your name?”  
  
Lance looked up over the rim of his mug. “Lance.”  
  
There was a beat of silence filled only by sipping noises.  
  
Finally, “Lance what?”  
  
“If I’m gonna be on a last name basis with you it’s only fair that you tell me your name first.”  
  
“My name is Tsuyoshi Garrett, I’m the general manager of this hotel.” Garrett set his coffee mug on the desk beside him. “And you are?”  
  
“Lance McClain.” It wasn’t really an assumed surname. It just wasn’t on his birth certificate.  
  
Garrett just nodded, apparently willing to take the offered name at face value. “Ser McClain, I have a duty to uphold this hotel’s esteemed reputation, and in the service of protecting that reputation I cannot permit certain kinds of transactions to take place on its premises. However,” Garrett looked up and met Lance eye to eye, “Mister Shirogane happens to be a very special guest.”  
  
“Yeah I figured he had to be, seeing as he’s renting the penthouse.”  
  
“I suppose you wouldn’t have any reason to have heard of the Lisa Keighley Foundation.” When Lance didn’t respond, Garrett continued, “It’s a philanthropic organization that supports student chamber orchestras in high schools nationwide and assists classical musicians seeking entry into music schools. Many talented students who would not otherwise have been able to pursue music as a career choice have been helped by the foundation.”  
  
Garrett had a pensive look on his face that gave Lance the notion that he personally knew someone who had benefited from this foundation.  
  
Lance curled his hands around the warm coffee mug. “Shiro is involved with the foundation?”  
  
“Mister Shirogane is the founder.” Garrett blinked back into the present. “He may decline to take any accolades for it, but he can’t stop people from feeling grateful. So.” Garrett crossed his arms and adopted a stern expression that looked out of place on his broad, friendly face. “While we at the hotel would prefer our guests to always sign in their additional guests on arrival, we are willing to make an exception for Mister Shirogane and allow his cousin to stay with him anonymously this one time.”  
  
His cousin? “Wait, me?”  
  
“I assume you have no other cousins here?” Garrett’s tone was dry as dust. “No? Then so long as you change your attire to abide by our dress code, we have an understanding for the duration of Mister Shirogane’s visit.”  
  
“Yeah... about that.” Lance crossed his legs and felt the PVC chafe his thighs as he took one hand off the coffee mug to reach into the hidden billfold and withdraw the roll of cash. “I would have changed clothes sooner, but I’m having a little problem getting anyone around here to sell me anything, even though I actually have the money to pay for it.” He laughed bitterly as he waved the useless green bills for Garrett’s eye-witness confirmation. “I think I’m gonna have to wear Shiro’s clothes until I can get that situation managed and I'm not sure if he's gonna like that.” He bounced his leg and blew out a cross breath as he slid the money back in the billfold one-handed. “I could probably get my roommate to bring me some clothes when he swings by to pick up the rent money, but they won’t be much nicer than what I’m wearing.” Lance rubbed at his eyes with the hem of one red sleeve. “But they’d cover up more of my real estate at least.” Angry tears felt distressingly close to the surface.  
  
Garrett started to take on that concerned expression again. He stood and took his office phone handset out of its cradle and punched in a number on speed dial.  
  
Lance slumped in the chair. “If you’re calling the cops, could you at least give me a running head start?”  
  
“Yes, I need to speak with Coran in Omega’s Clothing,” Garrett said into the receiver. “Of course.” He took advantage of the brief hold to send Lance a quelling look. “Coran! Yeah man, it’s great to talk to you too.” Garrett smiled and it transformed him into a human ray of sunshine. “Listen, I have a favor to ask. Yeah.” He laughed at something this Coran person said. “I’d like to send over an omega named Lance, he’s the special guest of Mister Shirogane– yeah, he’s still as stoic as ever. No, I don’t think– the thing is, Lance needs a few wardrobe essentials suitable for accompanying Mister Shirogane in appropriate style, and it would be a huge favor to me as well if you can help out. Thank you so much Coran! I’m sending him right over. Don’t be shocked if he’s, ah... dressed a little funky. Downtown. Yeah, that’s one way to describe it. If you could meet him downstairs that would be totally– thanks man, you’re the best!”  
  
Garrett said his goodbyes and disconnected. “I’m sending you to meet a friend of mine, he works in Omega’s Clothing at the department store down the street.” Garrett pinned Lance with a look. “I want you to be on your absolute best behavior with him. He’s doing us both an enormous favor, so no funny business, alright.”  
  
“Yeah.” Lance took a deep, cleansing breath. “Alright.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Gentlefolk, what you are viewing is the future site of the next major urban real estate development in the City of Angels.” Lotor spoke over the aerial footage of industrial creek-front property being projected on the conference room screen. “It currently still belongs to Hawkins Aircraft Company, but once we control their board of directors we’ll be able to start converting the property for residential re-development. Yes Narti, what is it?”  
  
Narti, dressed in her customary charcoal power suit that was no doubt hiding numerous stun weapons, leaned down to whisper something in her employer’s ear.  
  
Lotor frowned and straightened out of his slouched posture in the executive chair. “It seems we have news on how Hawkins plans to counter our bid. Pause the footage Ylvik.”   
  
Lotor’s intern Ylvik paused the footage and turned on the overhead lights.  
  
Lotor stood, leaning over the table palms down in a dominance display. “Narti here tells me that Hawkins has been exploiting his connections within the Garrison to obtain a contract that could bring a considerable influx of money and influence his way.”  
  
“His stock prices could rally,” worried Raht.  
  
“At least we found out in time to walk away with nothing lost,” Prorock ventured.  
  
“Nothing lost?” Throk sneered. “Only weeks of our valuable time that we shall not gain back!”  
  
The investors at the conference table erupted into arguing. It never ceased to amaze Shiro how rapidly the behavior of the gently born could deteriorate over just a bit of unfortunate news. He waited a moment to see if they would come to order on their own. They didn’t, so he breathed deep through his nose to push his voice out through his diaphragm.  
  
♪ “Dio m’esaudi’!” ♪  
  
They shut the hell up.  
  
“Now that I have all of your attention,” Shiro stood over them with his hands held lightly behind his back, “does anyone here have the ear of a member of the Appropriations Committee?”  
  
“Senator Sanda,” Lotor said with the dawning smile of knowing that yes, Shiro was about to pull their collective asses out of the fire again.  
  
“Good,” Shiro said. “Let’s reach out to her immediately. The Garrison isn’t about to leverage Hawkins out of anything without going through Appropriations first. We still have time to nip this in the bud.” And another industrial park could be leveled to make room for homes with families. “I’ll be in my office for the rest of the day, you all know how to reach me.”   
  
“You know that my offer still stands,” Lotor said as he walked Shiro to the door.  
  
“My answer still stands,” Shiro replied.  
  
He had a standing offer from Lotor to make use of his firm’s offices and staff, but Shiro preferred to rent a private turnkey office in a co-working building with full amenities. It was his custom whenever he traveled away from his home base in New York, and so far he was satisfied with it. He liked having his own space without feeling beholden for it.  
  
“Are you prepared for the dinner meeting tonight?” Lotor followed Shiro out into the hallway. “Do you have anything that still requires setting up?”  
  
Shiro knew that he was indirectly inquiring on whether he was open to being set up with ‘a friend of a friend, a lovely omega’ and a favor owed to Lotor. “Don’t worry Lotor, I have a date.”  
  
“Really?” Lotor squinted at Shiro as if he didn’t quite believe him. “Anyone I know?”  
  
Shiro felt a grin stealing over his features. “I sincerely doubt it.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The stately building rose six imposing stories high above the street, but if its limestone facade was like a society matron’s face spackled in blurring foundation, its cheerfully flapping red awnings were like a bawdy wink out of saucy eyes. Lance girded his loins and walked in through the front entrance like a real customer would. Because he was a real customer, damn it.  
  
The interior was awash in soft cool light coming from LED bulbs in the display cases and natural light redirected from outside by way of mirrors, opening up the rack-filled space. The smell of leather from purses and belts and shoes was everywhere, and directly ahead next to the grand staircase, fabulous jewelry sparkled under glass. Lance reflexively folded his hands up against his chest, because with his luck he’d get dazzle in his eyes and accidentally knock something over.   
  
He directed his gaze to the staircase, a massive affair of wrought iron and marble, and saw a tall red-haired man descending with eyes fixed in his direction. He was dressed very smartly in a blue sport coat with matching dress trousers and a white polo shirt.  
  
Look for the red mustache, Garrett had told him. Well, this gentleman of a certain age certainly had one of those, and a magnificent one it was, too.  
  
“Hello there, young fellow!” Coran – if this was him, and Lance was reasonably sure it was – swept forward with a smile that crinkled his eyes and the trailing scent of orange blossoms. This tall red-haired man was a fellow omega. “You must be Lance.”  
  
“That’s me.” Lance accepted the offered hand clasp. “You must be Coran.”  
  
“Indeed I am.” Coran hooked arms with Lance and led him towards the staircase. “Hunk tells me you need to be kitted out to accompany our Mister Shirogane about town?”  
  
Hunk? “You mean Mister Garrett?”  
  
Coran’s blue eyes twinkled like Santa at the beach on a Christmas card. “The very one.”  
  
“Yes, I need something to wear to dinner tonight.” Lance was so relieved he could cry. “Shiro said it has to look refined.”  
  
“A cocktail jumpsuit might be just the ticket.” Coran took a quick glance at Lance’s footwear. “I believe you can pull off the Cuban heel trend as well.”  
  
Lance smiled as he let himself be drawn up the stairs. “Well, I am a Cuban, so I bet you’re right.”  
  
“Course I am.” Coran winked. “I’m an expert.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Coran Coran the gorgeous man had done what those putas at Kral Zera said couldn’t be done: he’d found Lance a cocktail jumpsuit with shoes, hosiery, a makeup gift set, and a silver-gilt bangle much more elegant than the glitter-encrusted ones he already owned. _“Red and blue are appealing colors on you, but for a dinner party with Mister Shirogane’s business associates, I think we should stick with classic black and a minimalist piece of jewelry.”_ It was totally fucking refined, so much that it had made a respectable dent in the funds Shiro had fronted him.  
  
Coran had also managed to rustle up a t-shirt with joggers, socks and sneakers from the clearance racks which still cost more individually than Lance had ever spent on a whole outfit in his entire life, but didn’t tap out the cash he had left over after purchasing the dinner outfit. He wouldn’t call himself flush at this point, but with all expenses paid and rent already parceled out, he wouldn’t need to be until the end of the week. After thanking Coran profusely, Lance wore the casual outfit out of the department store. He was still underdressed, but now he was expensively underdressed in a way that allowed him to blend in better.  
  
Nobody stared at him this time when he waltzed into the Beverly Wilshire and strode over to the front desk. Two people were having a lively conversation in Japanese on the far side of the lobby. Leifsdottir was still on duty at reception.  
  
“Hi, Miss Leisfsdottir, right? I left something here for Keith Kogane to pick up, has he been in yet?”  
  
Leifsdottir blinked blue eyes dreamily. “No serah, not yet.”  
  
Lance frowned. “Okay, thanks.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
Lance turned to walk to the elevators and saw that one of the two people conversing in Japanese was Mister Garrett – Hunk. He knew it was Japanese, because Keith was fluent and had shouty conversations with his foster mother Akane (who was also his second cousin) on the phone every two weeks without fail. Lance had learned to recognize a few words. Mostly curses, but also some conjunctions and the specific phrase ‘who the hell.’   
  
Hunk’s conversation with the guest sounded a lot less fraught. Lance waited next to a potted ficus, shopping bags over his arms, until the guest went on his merry way. Then he stepped forward to greet the hotel manager.  
  
“Moshi moshi!”  
  
Hunk turned to him with a quizzical smile. “That greeting is really only used on the phone, you know.”  
  
Lance flushed in embarrassment. “Sorry.” He hadn’t known.  
  
“It’s fine,” Hunk waved off the faux pas, “I’m glad to see Coran was able to get you all sorted out.”  
  
“Yeah.” Lance smiled up at him gratefully. “Thanks again for arranging that. He’s a super cool dude and so are you.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
Regris did a double take when Lance entered the elevator, but he didn’t comment. He simply said, “Penthouse, serah,” when they reached the top floor.  
  
“Thanks Regris.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Regris said, and returned to his duties. The phone was ringing when Lance let himself into the room. He hustled forth to answer it, packages jostling.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
_“I don’t want you answering the phone in the penthouse,”_ Shiro said.  
  
Lance rolled his eyes. “Then why did you call me to tell me that?”  
  
_“Did you get an outfit suitable for going out?”_  
  
“Yes! I met the hotel manager and he called this wonderful man named Coran to help me out, he was so nice.”  
  
_“Glad to hear it. Meet me in the hotel lobby at 7:00 p.m. sharp.”_  
  
Lance huffed. “You’re not gonna answer my question?”  
  
_“The point is moot since I just told you anyway.”_  
  
Lance checked the wall clock. He had oodles of time for primping. “So where are we going for dinner?”  
  
_“An Italian supper club in a historic building. The guest of honor is an older gentleman with a fondness for tradition.”_  
  
“Will there be dancing?” Coran had told him he could dance in the shoes they’d picked out.  
  
_“This isn’t a social occasion.”_  
  
“Isn’t it though?” Silence on the other end of the line. “I mean, kinda? I thought that’s the main reason you hired me. To be pleasantly distracting at social functions.”  
  
_“Thank you for remembering.”_ Shiro’s voice softened. _“I don’t believe there is live music scheduled at the venue tonight. It’ll just be dinner and conversation.”_  
  
“Okay, I gotcha.” Lance took note of the phone number showing in the caller ID display. “I’ll be downstairs at seven with bells on.”  
  
_“A semi-formal outfit will suffice. No need for bells.”_  
  
“Smarty.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro leaned his elbows on the stained ash desktop and his chin on his hands, considering. With a grin, he plucked the handset out of the cradle of his private office’s multi-line phone and hit redial. An incoming call lit up line two as line one was still ringing. Caller ID showed it was Lotor calling him. Shiro ignored it, knowing the call would be routed to the answering service when he didn’t pick up after the sixth ring.  
  
_“Hello?”_  
  
“Didn’t I just tell you not to answer the phone in the penthouse?”  
  
_“But I knew it was you!”_ Lance rose to the bait with delightful excitability.  
  
Shiro was still grinning when he hung up the phone.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance scowled at the phone. If this was Shiro’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t very funny.  
  
Well, he hadn’t said Lance couldn’t make outbound calls. Lance picked up the phone and dialed 1-800-GodamnitKeithPickUpThePhone. He heard ten rings and a click, and redialed.  
  
_“What?”_  
  
“Keith! What’s going on, why didn’t you come out and get the rent money?”  
  
_“Rolo and Nyma have been hanging out in the courtyard all fuckin’ day.”_  
  
Shit.   
  
The motel courtyard had definitely seen better days, with its paving gone to gravel and its landscaping gone to weeds, and all of the patio furniture long since carried off, but there was an unofficial community garden down there in makeshift planters, and some of that urban farming was ganja.   
  
Naturally.   
  
Morvok had been getting a payoff for looking the other way since before the law changed, so dealers frequently gained access to the courtyard who shouldn’t have been allowed in the building at all due to not being omega. Among Rolo’s many hats these days was running off-label cannabis to people who were under the legal age to toke.  
  
Hell, that’s how Keith met Rolo in the first place. Rolo must be getting impatient, or need a new income stream, or just really want to get in Keith’s pants, but whatever his reason, his timing was impeccably bad.  
  
“You can’t sneak out the fire escape?”  
  
_“How am I gonna get my bike down on the fire escape?”_  
  
Keith’s pride and joy was his red Honda Express, a vintage scooter that had belonged to his birth mother before finding its way into his possession. The motel had street parking and a bike rack out front. Keith knew better than to use either one. When Keith was not actually riding it, the bike stayed in the cramped apartment along with their other belongings.  
  
“How about taking the bus, just this once?”  
  
_“You know how I feel about the bus, man.”_  
  
Lance knew. It wasn’t easy being omega on any bus, but it was worse if the omega was close to a heat and the bus was crowded and not well supervised. Lance had grown inured to groping attempts on the guagua back home. He’d always hear from his mother about how much worse it used to be on the camello. Keith, though... there was a story there. Lance didn’t know all of it, but he’d gathered enough bits to know that if Armageddon came and the only escape was on the bus, Keith would still look for another form of transportation.   
  
“Maybe I can wire you the money? I’m gonna try to figure something out, call me if you need to, I’ve still got some time left on my phone.”   
  
Lance kept a cheap little flip phone on his person just for emergencies, putting prepaid time on it whenever he could spare the bucks and praying he never had to test the free 911 function. Keith was the one whose cell phone could do cool shit, like the second number app they used for arranging meets, but they tried to preserve his data and used the room phone whenever possible.  
  
_“I don’t want to use up all your minutes.”_  
  
Lance did not like to hear that lack of effect in Keith’s tone, not at all.  
  
“Just, don’t do anything loco, okay? I’m gonna figure something out, I promise.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Long ago when Hunk was a small child, his Baba used to say to him, _Tsuyoshi-bō, you are the star in my sky and the sweetness in my dreams. I love you dearly, and that is why I say to you, with all of the warmth in my heart: my grandson you are a nosy Rosie_. Hunk knew this to be true, but it was only because he cared so much about the people in his life that when presented with the opportunity to choose between overhearing something about somebody important to him or minding his own beeswax, he always chose door number one.  
  
That was why he had programmed his office softphone to alert him to incoming and outgoing calls from the penthouse as soon as he discovered Mister Shirogane’s unregistered guest. Lance seemed very sweet for someone in his obvious profession, but Hunk felt like he owed Mister Shirogane a debt and that situation bore watching.  
  
He had just stepped into his office when an incoming call alert popped up on his desktop monitor, so he put on his USB headset, flicked the inline mute switch and typed in the call monitoring code. What he heard was... unexpected. It was Mister Shirogane, and he sounded as businesslike as ever, no dirty talk like Hunk would have assumed for a clandestine rendezvous, or even any of the cutesy stuff he’d overheard between lawfully courting couples. Hunk blushed in embarrassed pride when Lance talked him and Coran up to Mister Shirogane.   
  
Then came the admission that Lance had been hired to be a social helpmeet. How touchingly typical of the deeply reserved alpha to have done something like that. No wonder he’d been so indiscreet about it. He probably had no idea what he was doing, and Lance didn’t seem all that much better at intrigue, in Hunk’s opinion. They concluded their dinner plan parley and hung up. Then Mister Shirogane called back and awkwardly flirted? Is that what Hunk was hearing?  
  
Hunk was still trying to make sense of that second call when Lance dialed out, and he thought, _here it is_. Sweet or not, what person in Lance’s situation could fail to notice when he had a big fish like Mister Shirogane securely on the line? Only, the outbound conversation was also not what he had expected at all. Apparently Lance’s roommate, the one who was supposed to come pick up rent money at the front desk, was having some kind of a crisis, and for the first time since acting on the intent to eavesdrop, Hunk felt guilty for just sitting there listening.   
  
It was the vocalizing at the end of the call that really did him in, as Lance and his roommate Keith made throaty-chirruping noises at each other in a frequency that only omega vocal chords could manage comfortably. It was a consoling noise omegas only did for other omegas, and it reminded Hunk of those meerkats his mother used to watch on TV every time he had the privilege of overhearing it. He’d mentioned that once to his childhood best friend Shay. She had not been flattered by the comparison.  
  
Well, there was just nothing else for it. He was going to stick his nose into these omegas’ business, whether they liked it or not. He stepped out of his office with the aim of doing just that only to discover Lance racing toward him across the lobby.  
  
“Oh thank God, you’re still here! Hunk, I need your help!”  
  
So that was how Hunk wound up leaving Assistant Manager Nadia Rizavi temporarily in charge while he drove to the rescue of a Hollywood hooker, with another one riding shotgun in his Subaru.  
  
“This is probably not the best time to mention this,” Lance said as Hunk maneuvered into heavy afternoon traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard, “but I kind of feel like Cinderella riding home in the pumpkin coach right now.”  
  
“The paint job is tangerine orange,” Hunk sighed, “not pumpkin orange.” Everybody immediately thought of pumpkins as soon as they saw his car, even though it was obviously atomic tangerine orange which was not the same shade as pumpkin orange at all.  
  
“Um, okay,” was all Lance said, and he didn’t mention pumpkins again for the rest of the nearly forty minute drive.   
  
As the GPS mileage tracker wound down, the neighborhood got steadily seedier, until finally the omega hostel came into view. It was a motel-to-apartment conversion, a three-storey mid-century design gone to pot (possibly literally if the skunky odor wafting away from the lot was any clue). Hunk had heard of places like this, had feared Shay having to resort to such a place, before Mister Shirogane’s organization had funded the program that enabled her to achieve admission into a conservatory with on-campus housing. Now here he was at such a place in the company of a fallen omega.  
  
“Turn here,” Lance said, pointing out a side street. “Park by the curb – there, right there.”  
  
Hunk parked at the curb near a rusted fire escape snaking down the side of the building just past a broken-down fence that barely qualified as a fence anymore.  
  
“You wouldn’t happen to have an umbrella, would you?” Lance asked.  
  
“Of course.” L.A. might not be the rainiest place in the world, but as the general manager of a luxury hotel it behooved Hunk to always be prepared to protect his clothes or the clothes of anyone he might happen to be with. Which on this occasion was an omega of the evening, and it wasn’t raining.  
  
“What do you need the umbrella for?” Hunk asked as he popped open the glove compartment to take out the travel umbrella.  
  
Lance turned the closed umbrella over in his hands, then handed it back to Hunk. “Never mind. I’ll just jump.”  
  
“You’ll jump?”  
  
Lance hopped out of the car, slipped through the 'fence' with ease, trotted over to the fire escape and leaped for the bottom rung. He missed and tried again.  
  
“Oh, jeez.” Hunk got out of the car, engaged the alarm and hurried over to join Lance. “Allow me.” He reached up and was able to get his fingers hooked over the bottom rung, which was already partially lowered because it seemed the omegas on this side of the building used this fire escape as their back door. He tugged, and with a croaking noise that called to mind Baba’s stories about yūrei, the fire escape ladder descended.  
  
“Thanks Hunk!” Lance scrambled up the fire escape like it wasn’t made of tetanus and the groans of resentful spirits.  
  
Gritting his teeth and praying against lockjaw, Hunk followed. If he was going to be involving himself in these omegas’ lives, he wanted to meet both of them.  
  
Lance climbed all the way up to the third floor and tapped on the window. Someone, presumably Keith, opened the window and Lance crawled inside.  
  
Hunk clambered onto the top floor landing and peered inside the open window. What he could see from that vantage point appeared to be an old school kitchenette with a double bed and an impressive array of functional clutter, lit by LED paper lanterns instead of the overhead light. The sooty glass of the flush-mounted ceiling cover indicated that the reason for the indirect lighting was probably not ambience. Their landlord must have tried to put CFL bulbs in an old mushroom light fixture without checking the wattage first.  
  
Lance came back into the living area from an attached room that by process of elimination had to be the bathroom. Close on his heels was a darker-haired omega with fair skin, whose lithe figure was swamped in lounge pants and a black thermal shirt which was so oversized for his frame that it clung to his shoulders for dear life.  
  
Lance spotted Hunk standing in the window and sketched a bow. “Welcome to our humble abode. Please come in before somebody sees you and reports us to Morvok for letting an alpha in the building.”  
  
The other omega – Keith – snorted.  
  
Hunk took the invitation and climbed in the window. “I can fix that overhead light fixture for you, if you want.”  
  
Keith looked up, eyes widened in surprise. Beautiful eyes they were, blue-grey with long, curling lashes. The keloid scar that began under his right eye did nothing to detract from the exquisite symmetry of his face.  
  
Lance smiled. “That’s a kind offer Hunk, but I don’t want you to risk electrocution for a room that may never fully recover from Morvok’s mismanagement.”  
  
“Huh.” Keith cocked his head. “You were right, he is a hunk.”  
  
“Oh right.” Lance looked between the two of them rapidly. “Hunk, this is my roommate Keith. Keith, this is Hunk, the general manager of the Beverly Wilshire and not my client.”  
  
Keith’s rosebud lips parted in confusion.  
  
“Lance needed a lift,” Hunk explained.  
  
“Uh huh.” Keith’s pretty face screwed up in a ‘somebody explain what the farce is going on here’ look as he turned to Lance.  
  
Lance scratched behind his ear in a studiously casual motion. “Yeah, it seemed like the best option was to just come over here and sneak the cash to Morvok, you know how stupid he gets about traceable funds, but I needed a ride and Hunk was an absolute angel for agreeing to drive me.”  
  
“There was no way Lance would get back in time to make his dinner date with Mister Shirogane if he took the bus.” Hunk wasn’t entirely sure why he suddenly felt the need to defend his actions. Maybe it was the increasingly incredulous expression taking over Keith’s seraphic features.  
  
“Right.” Lance abruptly moved past the tiny kitchen to a door with a plastic mail organizer affixed to it. “I’m gonna go take care of that now, wish me luck I’ll be back in a jiffy.”  
  
Keith followed Lance to the door, apparently determined to have one last word. Harsh whispering started before Lance even got the door open. Hunk followed to the edge of a folding screen that had been pressed into duty in an attempt to separate the kitchen area from the bedroom area.  
  
“...thought we agreed no pimps!”  
  
“He’s not a pimp, he’s just a really nice guy.”  
  
“I’m hiding upstairs from a really nice guy who turned out to be a pimp, in case you’ve forgotten.”  
  
“Will you chillax? Hunk has a good job, he probably makes more bread from that than he’d ever get turning us out. Just calm down and wait here, I’ll be right back.”  
  
“Like I could go anywhere.”  
  
Lance slipped out into the hallway.   
  
Keith sighed and desultorily went to the little coppertone fridge, leaning into the lower compartment and emerging with a red can of soda, which he opened with a fizzy snap. “Want a Red Pop?” he asked without looking over at Hunk.  
  
Did Hunk want a Red Pop? The truth was, he was thirsty and he did like Red Pop, but was it rude to accept a soft drink from an impoverished sex worker with a fridge shorter than Hunk was? What if he was taking Keith’s last can of soda? But what if Keith became mortally offended at Hunk for refusing his offering of refreshment?  
  
“Here.” Keith was suddenly right there in Hunk’s space, pressing a cold can of Red Pop into his hands. He smelled bittersweet and volatile in a hauntingly familiar way.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Yeah no prob.” Keith took his soda over to the tiny dinette set crammed against the wall next to the door. “Do you usually drive your customers’ escorts home to help them pay off their slumlords?”  
  
“No.” Slowly, like approaching a skittish house cat, Hunk stepped over to the other dinette chair and lowered himself into it. “This is a first for me.”  
  
Keith took a pull from his soft drink. “Dude’s a real VIP, huh?”  
  
“Mister Shirogane is a special guest,” Hunk countered. “He’s important to a lot of people for reasons that go beyond his financial status.” He took a sip of his drink, which tasted like liquefied candy and childhood block parties.  
  
“Okay.” Keith nodded soberly. “Lance seems to like him.”  
  
“He won’t mistreat your friend,” Hunk said, because Keith sounded kind of annoyed about it.  
  
“I’m more worried about Lance getting attached.” Keith drummed his fingers on the table. His fingernails were decorated with gradient purple lacquer and glitter to resemble outer space. “The rules are to protect him as much as the client. Lance thinks he’s been doing this long enough to have it all figured out, but he’s still young. He’ll probably have to learn the hard way. Most everybody does.”  
  
“You don’t look that old yourself.”  
  
“I’ve been out here longer,” Keith replied enigmatically.  
  
Keith couldn’t possibly be more than a year or two older than Lance. It wasn’t just his smooth skin that spoke to his youth, but also his scent, buttery-rich and redolent of something that was right on the tip of Hunk’s brain. He cast his eyes around the room in an effort to clear his mind a little. He wasn’t sure if it was Keith’s scent or a secondhand effect of the marijuana being grown somewhere on the premises, but he was feeling kind of swoony.  
  
The tiny apartment’s overflowing tchotchkes had a running decorating theme of the Eiffel Tower. Magnets, kitchen towels, stacked storage boxes, even the bath mat half-visible through the open bathroom doorway had a print of the Parisian landmark on it.  
  
That’s it. Hunk snapped his fingers. “Tarte au chocolat!”  
  
Keith aimed an arched eyebrow at Hunk. “Did you just call me a chocolate tart.”  
  
“No, it’s your scent! I knew what it was but I couldn’t remember, it was driving me nuts!”  
  
“That’s a new one on me.” Keith chuckled. “Usually alphas like to tell me I smell like Angel.”  
  
_No, you look like an angel_ Hunk almost said, but fortunately his brain to mouth filter was back online. “You mean the perfume? Nah, your scent is dreami- I mean, creamier.”   
  
It had full-bodied top and base notes of dark chocolate ganache and warm heart notes of vanilla and cinnamon, and Hunk knew it was supposed to actually invoke a plant but he was at a loss as to what plant could possibly evoke the allure of a bakery on the rue de Seine.  
  
Hunk hadn’t experienced such an intensely overwhelming instinct to court since... well, since Shay, who had grown up to realize she greatly preferred the female form. Was Hunk doomed to only be attracted to omegas who were unavailable?  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wondered, "is chapter two too early to get the secondary couple's romance underway," and Heith said "hold my beer."


	3. Smooth Operator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance finds out something surprising, goes on his date with Shiro, and gets lucky. Hunk is smitten with Keith and decides to do something chivalrous about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the kudos, and thanks to blue wonderer, Hyarou, Xochitl, SpaceSquirrelQueen and shiro gone yee for your comments. You all are so great!

Lance crept down an interior hallway that looked like it was one urban legend away from becoming cursed. Old-timers in the building said Morvok had slapped some red paint over the deteriorating wallpaper, ripped up the threadbare carpets and threw down plywood flooring when none of the contractor bids for rehabbing the old place met his stingy specifications. Nobody could navigate those floors without hitting at least one creaky spot, unless they’d been staying there long enough to learn where every spot was.  
  
Or, if they were like Lance and extremely motivated to figure out a map past the creaky spots by testing the flooring multiple times, and shameless enough to try to charm any neighbors he might annoy in the doing. Xi had been the only one who remained unamused, and they still called him ‘Yeren’ whenever they saw him.  
  
It was worth it for the mental map that got Lance down to the ground floor completely unnoticed. Now came the hard part: sneaking around the periphery of the courtyard without Thing One and Thing Two spotting him. Slipping out the emergency exit and coming back in through the front door was probably a bad idea, because unlike the stair landing, the front door was entirely visible from the courtyard and Rolo and Nyma no doubt had an eye on it watching for none other than Lancey Lance himself.  
  
Lance stole into the rear foyer with the ice machine that hadn’t stocked ice of a frozen variety for ages. There were two more doors in the foyer, one leading outside and the other leading back into the interior. That second one was the one Lance wanted because it was a straight shot to the tightwad’s office, but unfortunately it would require him to hustle past one side of the courtyard – one of the short sides, and there was a small jungle of plants that could partially shield him, but it was still a risk.  
  
Once more into the breach, dear friends. Lance crouched and sidled out the door as discreetly as he could. He held still a moment. All was quiet, but he could smell the alpha and beta nearby. Their combined scents smelled like root beer, just strong enough to overcome the smell of someone’s horticultural efforts. Somebody had been monster cropping. Miss Ryner’s blackberries were also doing quite nicely. The garden was bushy enough to hide Lance’s progress as long as he stayed low. Hopefully the courtyard’s other occupants couldn’t smell him too.  
  
“Did you hear something?”  
  
Lance stopped stock-still midway between doors.  
  
“Probably just the cockroaches in this place, baby. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”  
  
“I don’t know, Nyma, I’m starting to feel a little weird about this whole thing. Those omegas are alright for street punks. They got potty mouths, but they’re not mean.”  
  
“Rolo, I told you before, we’re going to protect them. They’re both way too pretty to keep turning tricks on the street. If they stay out there it’ll ruin their looks and wind up getting them killed. They deserve to be uptown call boys, and we deserve our piece of the action when we help them reach their full potential.”  
  
Lance could hardly believe his ears. Nyma was the freaking pimp?  
  
“You’re probably right baby.”  
  
“I’m always right. Now how about you give mama some of that sugar?”  
  
Quiet as a mouse hiding from a snake in the grass, Lance took advantage of their momentary distraction to complete the distance to the other door and slip inside.   
  
“What are you doing on the floor?” Morvok sat perched behind the reception window on the counter-height chair he used to disguise his shortness.  
  
“I’m practicing for an audition.” It was his standard excuse for anything odd he got caught doing, an excuse he learned from Keith. Under ‘occupation’ on his rental application, Keith had put down ‘actor,’ so when Lance moved in he told Morvok that he was an actor too.  
  
“An audition as what? An earthworm?”  
  
“I’m auditioning for the next human centipede movie. If I get the part I’m gonna be one of the middle segments.”  
  
Morvok made a face and said, “Break a leg, I guess. You got my rent money, kid?”   
  
Reactions like that added evidence to Lance’s theory that Morvok would not welcome an offer to reduce the rent in trade, even if Lance could overcome his internal resistance and try pitching it. Money was the only thing that could ignite a spark of lust in the landlord’s avaricious little heart.  
  
“Yeah, I got it.” Lance took it out of the pocket of his new joggers, still in the envelope with Keith’s name on it, and passed it over.  
  
“Excellent.” Morvok took out the bills and started counting them off. “I like it when the money’s all clean and crisp like this. Did you remember the late fee?”  
  
“Of course.” Lance had pretty much taken over this particular errand after moving in with Keith. It was an extra twenty dollars for every day the rent was late, if Morvok didn’t kick them out first. He knew the drill.  
  
Morvok wrote him out a receipt (anyone who didn’t insist on a written receipt from him was nuts) and Lance sneaked back out of the office to find an empty courtyard. No sign or smell of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum anywhere.  
  
Lance didn’t think they’d given up. Most likely they’d gotten hungry and decided to take a chow break. They’d be back. Omega male prostitutes were not to every client’s taste, but they were a rare commodity, possessing the robust immune system they shared with female omegas (though it was not the panacea that popular sentiment liked to portray it as) but only at risk of pregnancy during heats. Lance and Keith were still young and strong. The main thing keeping them perpetually broke was their choosiness. It was no wonder Nyma thought she could make a mint off their backs.  
  
Lance ascended the stairs, once again successfully avoiding the creaky spots. He approached the scarlet door to his and Keith’s place and slowed his step when he heard cackling from within.  
  
_“...and that’s when I show ‘em this!”_  
  
_“Aww, ‘cause it looks like their achy breaky hearts?”_  
  
_“No ‘cause it looks like their blue balls!”_  
  
Wow. Those two were getting along better than he’d had any reason to hope. Lance opened the door and found Keith and Hunk sitting across from each other at the dinette set, testing the integrity of the table supports because they kept leaning heavily on the table’s flimsy surface while giggling. Keith had retrieved his cardamom-scented perfume from the bathroom, which came in a bottle that... huh. If you turned it upside down, it did look like blue balls.  
  
Lance came in and shut the door behind him. “Morvok’s paid off, we’re saved for another month.”  
  
“Yay.” Keith mimed raising a tiny roof.  
  
“And I’ve got something else you’ll want to hear.”  
  
“Oh yeah?”  
  
Lance told Keith what he’d overheard in the courtyard. His face started to take on that dangerous smirk which meant some unfortunate asshole was directly in the path of a category 5 shitstorm named Keith. Nyma better hold onto her hair extensions.  
  
Lance gave Keith some more of the cash to buy groceries before exiting via the fire escape with Hunk, and they rejoined the grueling afternoon traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. Sunshine and car exhaust contributed to increased temperatures, so Lance opened the vents as wide as they’d go while Hunk fiddled with the air conditioner’s settings.  
  
“Do you think Keith would like a case of soda?”  
  
Surprised, Lance examined Hunk’s profile. He had a determined set to his face. Was he thinking of trying to court Keith?  
  
“God, what am I saying, that’s a terrible gift,” Hunk babbled, “I should be giving him jewelry, something to match his eyes, or maybe a soft house robe that’s also beautiful because he should have beautiful things.”  
  
“I think a practical gift would shock the shit out of him,” Lance said carefully, “and I think that’s exactly why you should give him the case of soda.” He hadn’t known Hunk very long, but so far what he knew about the guy gave him an overall impression of a kind heart cautiously guarded.  
  
That was a pretty good description of Keith too, come to think of it, except Keith hid his kindness in a deeper place, behind a shield of thorns.  
  
“You think I should shock him?” Hunk sounded skeptical. “I don’t want to prank him, I just want to make him happy.”  
  
“Keith is used to alphas giving him pretty things so he can look good for them.”  
  
Lance gazed out the window at bustling office parks, and the entertainment venues which were comparatively torpid by the light of day. They were still a few miles out from the palm-tree lined section of the boulevard closer to Beverly Hills.  
  
“If you give him something that’s just for his benefit, he’ll know you want to make him happy.”  
  
How he’d respond to that knowledge was anybody’s guess.  
  
Hunk stewed over that advice for the rest of the drive, then nodded absentmindedly when Lance thanked him for his help and left to get ready for the dinner assignment.  
  
Barely six hours after that momentous bath, and already the scent of swank had been obliterated by the trip to feed Morvok’s cupidity. Lance took a shower to wash off the smells of traffic and Kush, and helped himself to some of Shiro’s purple hair conditioner. It was a bit too rich for Lance’s finer hair, but it smelled expensive and he didn’t think Shiro would appreciate the artificial fragrance of Lance’s own toiletries during a dinner date with one of his blue-blooded business associates. After a dab of Shiro’s pomade and a set with the hotel’s hair dryer it should look presentable.  
  
He slathered his body generously with the hotel lotion before putting on the hose Coran had recommended. Lance had never worn sheer tights designed for omega males before. They had a soft, stretchy panel on the crotch, like a coobie for his cocklet. Lance was completely charmed by it and wasted a good ten minutes playing in front of the mirror before the phone rang.  
  
Lance checked the caller ID. He was still apprehensive about whether Shiro really wanted him not to answer the phone when he could see very clearly that it was him calling, but if it was Keith then fuck it, he was answering. But it was the front desk. Cautiously, Lance picked up the handset.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
_“Lance!”_ It was Hunk. _“I need some advice. Oh wait, did I interrupt something?”_  
  
_Nah, just pretending to be a 16th century courtesan in a codpiece_. “Nothing much. What do you need advice about?”  
  
_“I need you to tell me which soft drinks and snacks Keith likes the best. Can you come down to my office? Pretty please? I have more coffee!”_  
  
“Well, only ‘cause you’re plying me with the good brew. I’ll finish getting ready and then I’ll be right down.”  
  
Lance finished sliding into his outfit, styled his hair and put on the makeup from the department store. _Add a little starshine to your evening_ , the ad copy on the gift set had promised, and Lance did find the shimmery sheer pigments caught indirect light in a flattering way, subtler than the more highly-saturated matte pigments in his usual working makeup. He could almost imagine wearing this just to go out for funsies. Lance debated applying a spritz of Shiro’s cologne as a finishing touch and decided against it. For one, the animalic fragrance was too alpha. For two, he was already pushing it having used Shiro’s hair conditioner and pomade.  
  
Lance shrugged at his image in the mirror, admiring how elegant the gesture looked in black crepe. _“It drapes like a dream, my dear. It has been a fashion favorite for centuries for a reason.”_ Coran knew his shit. Pipo would have liked him. Lance aimed finger guns and a big wink at his reflection before swanning out of the room.  
  
“You clean up nice,” Hunk said when he admitted Lance into his office for the second time that day. “Still want your coffee black?”  
  
“Thanks, and actually I’ll take a sweetener if you have it.” Lance was feeling much sweeter now, enough so that he could almost forget that he was really preparing for his job instead of relaxing on a leisure trip. He wondered if Hunk had forgotten too.  
  
“This is what I was thinking,” Hunk said as he showed Lance a shopping page on his computer screen.  
  
Lance looked over the options and gave his informed opinions. Keith liked sweets, loved the hell out of spices, and didn’t care a fig about brand recognition. He had always wanted to go to Paris, but that wasn’t the only thing to know about his preferences. Lance thought he decorated the apartment that way because it reminded him of something he could dream about doing in the future, loathe though he was to admit having dreams beyond the here and now.  
  
“You know, I was considering offering you some advice in return for your help,” Hunk said, “but you’re carrying yourself right now like you know a thing or two about comportment, so I’m wondering if you’d really need it.”  
  
Hunk had not only not forgotten Lance was on the job, he’d been making some private observations. Color Lance impressed and slightly intimidated.  
  
“I know a few things,” Lance admitted, setting his coffee cup down on the desk. “The school I went to had a required course on manners, and I come from a tourist town where that kind of information is especially useful, so it wasn’t treated like a grade-padding course. My abuelo filled me in on some details that weren’t in the course.” Like how to sit properly in well-tailored trousers, and how to hold a cup to minimize the possibility of spills while still maintaining a posture that would discourage wrinkling fine clothes.  
  
“That’s good,” Hunk nodded. “You’ll be around people who will notice if you slouch or put your elbows on the table. What about place settings?”  
  
“I know the Continental style.”  
  
“Mm hmm, that’s fine. Ever taken apart a lobster before?”  
  
That had definitely not been a common item for consumption in the Fernández household.  
  
“Couldn’t I just not eat lobster?”  
  
“If Mister Shirogane orders without consulting with you first then you might not get a choice.”  
  
It was considered gentlemanly for the alpha to order for the omega in formal dining situations. Damn it. “Je suis tout ouïe. Hit me up with some learning.”  
  
“Parlez-vous français? If you do it’ll be okay.”  
  
Lance dramatically slumped backwards in his chair, hands over his chest “Oof, you just killed me with that reference from days of long ago. Je suis mort!”  
  
Hunk just laughed. “Let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll show you a few things you might need to know.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The sun had set and L.A.’s neon stars were twinkling when Shiro stepped foot into the hotel lobby. Thanks to Lotor insisting on a last minute meeting to go over Hawkins’s assets one more time, he was running fashionably late for dinner. Shiro wasn’t too concerned about his own appearance, having chosen today’s merino wool suit for its ability to transition easily from day to night.   
  
No, the person whose appearance he had been concerned with was nowhere in sight. Shiro was only fifteen minutes late, surely that wasn’t enough to tax the patience of a pro. He strode towards the reception area intending to have Cinda call up to the room for him, when he was intercepted by another alpha. Big guy, nice suit, oddly familiar.  
  
“Good evening Mister Shirogane! I don’t believe I’ve ever properly introduced myself to you on previous occasions when we’ve spoken. I’m Tsuyoshi Garrett, the general manager of the hotel.”  
  
Uh oh.  
  
“I just wanted to express how much we enjoy having you as our guest, and to let you know that your cousin is waiting for you in the lounge.”  
  
Cousin? Shiro didn’t have any first cousins, and none of his second or third cousins should have any reason to be here. Unless there was some fresh hell involving Otōsan’s will?  
  
“And may I also commend you on your cousin Lance? Quite an unexpected charmer, that one.” There was a gleam in Garrett’s brown eyes that suggested he knew damn well Lance wasn’t Shiro’s cousin.  
  
“I think Lance’s parents deserve most of the credit there,” were the words that came tripping off of Shiro’s tongue, although he had no clue if they were true.  
  
“Any patron deserves credit for the good works they support.”  
  
“Yes, well,” Shiro was no longer certain if they were talking about Lance anymore, “I’m running late to pick up my cousin for dinner.”  
  
“Of course, don’t let me keep you.” Garrett stood aside and helpfully pointed the way toward the lobby-side lounge with a sweep of his hands. “Enjoy your evening.”  
  
“Thank you Mister Garrett.” Shiro reflexively dipped his head in a bow.  
  
“The pleasure is all mine.”   
  
Then, much to Shiro’s surprise, Garrett bent at the waist in futsuu rei before returning to whatever he’d been doing before. Shiro had no idea what had prompted that as Garrett had already shown appropriate respect according to Western customs, but he had to say the big man’s form was excellent.  
  
The lobby-side lounge was lit like a speakeasy, filament bulbs casting a muted amber glow over people enjoying either a night cap or one for the road. Shiro could have wished Lance had chosen the patio-side lounge instead. He would have been easier to spot at one of the outdoor tables and Shiro wouldn’t have had to come inside and have an awkward conversion with a man who possessed the authority to have him banned from this hotel for life.   
  
Shiro looked past people gathered around pub tables in the central floor area to the long wood-paneled bar on the far side of the room. Raking his eyes up and down the bar, he saw structured shoulders, bare shoulders, even one dandy in roped shoulders. Right in the center, clearly intending to be seen, sat a tall drink of water in black that draped scandalously low in the back, revealing a generous expanse of skin like burnished bronze. Shiro’s gaze lingered there. There was something familiar about that sleekly-muscled back.  
  
The tall drink of water swiveled on his bar stool and smiled as he met Shiro’s eyes, before hopping off the stool to meet him halfway across the floor. Lance had glossed his lips an iridescent red like jam. Shiro wondered if he would taste strawberries were he to take a bite.  
  
“I seem to recall asking you to wait for me in the lobby,” Shiro drawled as Lance drew near.  
  
“People started trying to pick me up,” Lance replied. “I figured I’d be less conspicuous in the lounge.”  
  
Shiro didn’t think Lance could fail to be conspicuous anywhere even if he wore a burlap sack. “In that case, I’m grateful for your perspicacity.”  
  
Lance cocked his head to the side and smiled. He’d styled his fringe and baby hairs to swoop away from his face and neck, so his scent glands were free and unobstructed to pump out waves of that intoxicating ginger lily scent. The wispy straps preventing the fabric draping his torso from falling right off did nothing to impede it either. “You’re welcome.”  
  
Shiro crooked his elbow invitingly. “Are you ready to accompany me to dinner?”  
  
Lance accepted the proffered arm. “Lead on.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
They rode to the restaurant in a limo, a long wheelbase model that seemed like a modest choice compared to a stretch, until Lance was ushered inside the luxuriously padded white leather interior. It was like sitting in a cloud. A cloud that smelled like a new car. Lance petted the seats while Shiro watched him with a grin on his face.  
  
“Is this yours?”  
  
Shiro shook his head. “Not this one, I’m renting it. It’s very similar to the one I use at home, though.”  
  
“¡Cielos!”  
  
Shiro’s driver pulled up to the curb outside of an art deco high-rise with a clock tower like out of a fairy tale. _Chiming down to midnight_ , Lance thought, _but I’m gonna enjoy the ball while I can_. Shiro’s driver, a tall, broad beta who smelled like sea spray, held the door open while Shiro climbed out, and then Shiro himself handed Lance out onto the sidewalk.  
  
The driver closed the door and turned to Shiro, who said, “Thank you Kai, I’ll see you in two hours unless you receive a call from me advising otherwise.”  
  
Kai bowed deeply, and only Shiro’s arm tightening around Lance’s waist prevented him from confusedly trying to curtsy. Kai got back in the limo and drove off while Shiro steered Lance toward molded glass doors embellished with jazz age gilt.  
  
“What’s he going to do for two hours?” Lance couldn’t help but ask.  
  
“Grab his own dinner at the diner two blocks over.”  
  
Oh. That made sense. Why should he have to wait for his dinner?  
  
A doorman in a red double-breasted blazer and cap opened the doors for them with white-gloved hands. Together, they stepped off smooth stone tiles and onto rich red marble. A man in a red and black tuxedo moved to greet them in the foyer. Shiro gave his name, and the maître D invited them to follow him to where their party was already seated.  
  
The restaurant was decorated in shades of red and gold, with massive crystal chandeliers and etched glasswork everywhere, including on the guard rail of the mezzanine above them. The reflections off marble, gilt and glass made a warm glow that cast all the diners and wait staff in softened tones. Also soft was the music playing from hidden speakers. It had been a few years since Lance had last taken a music appreciation class, but he was pretty sure it was a Vivaldi concerto.  
  
“You’re not fidgeting,” Shiro murmured wonderingly as they followed the maître D past round tables with square white overlays.  
  
“My abuelo made the finest bespoke suits in Matanzas Province,” Lance replied in low tones. “He always said good posture is the best accessory to nice clothes.”   
  
Granted, the jumpsuit fit a bit differently than one of Pipo’s creations. The deep cowl fell against his lower back more ephemerally than a darted blazer, and the legs fell about the tops of his dress shoes with a flutter very unlike trouser hems. _“Your shoes are taller dear, and your hem has a flare, so the break needs to be lower.”_ Coran had also advised him to stride through the hips instead of the knees and let his bare arms fall naturally to his sides. The eyes of strangers cut their way to monitor Lance’s progress. Shiro’s hand found its way to the spot on his back where fabric kissed skin.   
  
The maître D stopped beside a table where an older beta in a tuxedo vest waited with a leather binder in one gloved hand and a towel over the other arm. Seated at the table were two alphas, both brunet with diamond-shaped faces showing their kinship to one another. The elder was a beautifully preserved sixty-something in a double-breasted navy blue suit that would not have looked out of place in the restaurant’s original era, while the younger was a classically handsome twenty-something in a charcoal gray two-button suit that followed the more recent trend of a slim silhouette. Both stood from their chairs upon sight of the omega accompanying their expected dinner guest.  
  
“Mister Hawkins,” was all Shiro said by way of greeting. Lance wondered why he didn’t offer a warmer salutation. Didn’t taking a meal together usually mean people were happy to see each other?  
  
“Mister Shirogane,” the older alpha returned, sounding civil but seeming no more inclined to profess to being glad to see him. “I don’t believe you’ve met my grandson, James Jeffrey Griffin.”  
  
“Your namesake?” Shiro asked politely.  
  
“Chip off the old block,” Hawkins replied. It sounded like a veiled threat.  
  
“I like to think so,” James Jeffrey the younger agreed, holding out his hand to shake. “It’s nice to meet you.” He made it sound like a formality.  
  
“The pleasure is mine.” Shiro accepted the handshake. “Allow me to introduce my friend Lance McClain.”  
  
“Lovely to meet you” was aimed in Lance’s direction, sounding a little more sincere. Both of Lance’s hands were clasped in greeting, as was considered proper form with an unclaimed omega. All three alphas waited until Lance was seated before seating themselves, also proper.  
  
So, this dinner was actually a business meeting, and Lance was there to act as a buffer. He’d known that Shiro needed a plus one, but he’d assumed it was to save him from intrusive questions and unwanted flirting. It seemed what he really needed, at least in this instance, was an omega present to ensure the alphas he dealt with remained on their best behavior during informal negotiations. No wonder Shiro had decided to hire a pro instead of going courting. No courting omega would tolerate such chicanery for long.  
  
Lance, however, was game. Keith insisted on handling all the negotiations for jobs that came in on their classified ad. The closest Lance had ever been allowed to witnessing a high stakes negotiation was the time his sister Veronica talked their mother out of insisting that she wear abuelita’s wedding fascinator to get married in front of the notary. _“Mamá, it has a taxidermied tody on it.” “So beautiful.” “People will think it is nesting in my hair!” “Only because you never comb it.”_  
  
While Lance was woolgathering, Shiro did as Hunk had warned him he might do and ordered for the both of them. Crossley, their waiter, poured Lance a glass of Dolcetto without even asking to see ID. Perks of dining with a rich alpha. Lance took a sip. It was dry and tart, like black cherries.  
  
“Pappa al pomodoro,” Crossley announced, as he placed bowls of what looked like thick marinara sauce on the charger plates before each of them. It smelled like tomato basil heaven. But where was the bread?  
  
Lance peered around the table, trying to be subtle about it. He even glanced over to where Crossley stood folding his tray stand in preparation for a return to the kitchen  
  
“What are you looking for?” Shiro leaned into Lance’s space and whispered.  
  
Welp, he was busted. “The bread.”  
  
Shiro bit his lip. Was he mad?  
  
“It’s already in the soup.”  
  
No he wasn’t mad, he was trying not to laugh. Lance felt his cheeks warm. It wasn’t like he’d never had tomato soup before, it’s just that when his mother made it, it had a more broth-like consistency and an egg in the middle.  
  
“Thank you,” Lance whispered.  
  
“Prego.”  
  
Now Shiro was throwing puns back at him. Okay, maybe he’d earned that one after the self-indulgent dick pun from the night before. Note to self: do not pun at Shiro, for he will eventually pun back, because revenge to him was a dish best served with sauce.  
  
Meanwhile, James I and James II were discussing corporate synergy.  
  
“A family company with a reputation built upon a legacy stretching back for generations is surely worth more than the sum of its parts, wouldn’t you agree Mister Shirogane?”  
  
“I’m certainly not interested in assailing the integrity of your family’s reputation,” Shiro replied as he stirred his soup.  
  
“Then what are you interested in?” James Griffin sat forward, birch scent turning wintergreen with agitation. “You have to realize that your own reputation precedes you.”  
  
Shiro’s scent went smoky with carefully banked displeasure. “I am interested in ensuring that the resources I invest in are managed efficiently.”  
  
As the course continued apace, Lance observed. Shiro had control of this conversation by the simple fact that he had some kind of leverage on every single person at this table, but in terms of emotional control, James Hawkins seemed to be proving more adept, probably by virtue of his greater age and experience. Griffin, the youngest alpha at the table, was having the most trouble maintaining the decorum demanded of an alpha in the presence of an unclaimed omega in the public sphere.  
  
It was into this tense standoff that Crossley arrived to take away the soup and set down plates full of tiny spiral shells garnished with parsley. “Babbaluci,” he announced.  
  
Lance had heard of giving offerings of shells to the orisha Babalú-Ayé, but these looked way too small to be conchs.  
  
“They’re snails,” Shiro whispered into Lance’s ear. “Try them, they’re considered a delicacy in many parts of the world.”  
  
Well, Lance had figured out the snails part thank you, but what he couldn’t figure out was how to pull them out of those teeny tiny shells. The openings were too small to grab the foot with his fingers. Lance looked over his place setting. The fish fork was there, but even it was too big unless he were to try poking a single tine into the shell, which seemed like it would look too awkward to be considered polite. Wait, hadn’t Hunk said that shellfish was usually served with an oyster fork? Why was there no oyster fork on the side plate?  
  
“I, for one, would like an explanation as to what your game plan is for improving my grandfather’s company.” Griffin ignored his plate, leaning rather aggressively over the table and putting both his composure and his tie at risk.  
  
“I wonder if it has occurred to either of you that perhaps the best possible future for Hawkins Aircraft Company involves divestment.” Shiro picked up a spiral shell with thumb and forefinger. “Let go of your struggling business model and allow new holdings to be created.”  
  
“It’s not just a business model to me.” Hawkins studied Shiro across the table, trying to figure him out the same way Lance was still trying to figure out the damn tiny snails. “It’s my life.”  
  
“You would be wealthy enough to retire in complete comfort at the end of the divestiture process.”   
  
Shiro finally, finally, brought the snail to his mouth and... did he just suck the snail right out of the little shell? Why did the sight of that make Lance think inappropriate thoughts for the dinner table?  
  
“I don’t need more money,” Hawkins scoffed, picking up a tiny snail and examining it. “My family doesn’t need more money. The company my grandfather founded has given meaning to my life, and that is the inheritance I wish to leave for my grandson.”  
  
Lance ventured to pick up a tiny snail and quickly discovered that the gleam upon its surface was olive oil, as the unexpectedly slippery shell flew out of his pinched fingers like a shooter marble. As small as it was and as fast as it was moving, Lance wouldn’t have been able to track its landing site if it hadn’t hit an older lady’s coiled bun with enough force make her go ‘woo!’ and grab her hair.  
  
She had just stood up from her table preparing to leave, and now she looked all around trying to find out who was aiming projectiles at the back of her head, and what do you know, it was the sour-faced alpha lady from the hotel elevator. Small world.   
  
Lance tried to look nonchalant. He nonchalantly lifted his fish knife hoping to catch the alpha lady’s reflection, and caught Griffin looking at him with twitching lips. Two out of three good-looking alphas at this table made valiant attempts not to laugh at him so far, only one left to go and he’d have the complete set.  
  
He already looked silly, might as well go all in. Lance tried another snail. This time he didn’t accidentally launch it across the room. He brought it to his mouth and suckled at the opening of the shell. Garlicky oil flooded his taste buds as the tiny snail hit his tongue. Under the aromatics lay an earthier flavor, creating an umami taste experience that made him close his eyes in pleasure.   
  
He must have blissed out a little bit because the next thing he knew Crossley was removing his side plate full of empty shells and replacing it with a glass dish containing what looked like a banana-yellow sorbete with a mint leaf on top.  
  
“Sorbetto al limone,” said Crossley.  
  
Were the snails the dinner then, if they were serving dessert already? He’d always thought it was a myth that rich people ate like birds, because who wouldn’t eat their fill if money wasn’t an object, but maybe it was true.  
  
“It’s a palate cleanser,” Shiro whispered to him.  
  
Oh. Another tapa then. Cool, cool. Lance plucked up the mint leaf and popped it on his tongue, and looked over to find Shiro watching him with raised eyebrows. Was he not supposed to eat that part?  
  
“You know, I met your father once,” Hawkins said as they all dipped spoons into lemon-scented ice. “He also had a reputation for ruthlessness, but he seemed quite gracious in person.”  
  
“My father subscribed to the belief that to wear a smile was the greatest show of strength.”   
  
“Does he approve of your choice of vocation?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Shiro raised his spoon towards his unsmiling mouth. “I never got the chance to ask him before he died.”  
  
“I apologize,” Hawkins said, as he and Griffin both reared back slightly from the table. “I hadn’t heard the news.”  
  
The cold bittersweet of the lemon ice lingered on Lance’s tongue. “I’m sorry to hear that too.”  
  
“I’m not my father.” Shiro pushed his sorbetto aside. “I may hold all the cards in this game, but I will not do you the discourtesy of smiling about it. You asked to meet me, I’m here. Tell me what you would have of me and I’ll tell you whether I’ll grant it.”  
  
“I want to continue running my business the way my family has been running it for as long as I can remember.” Hawkins pushed his own sorbetto to the side. “I’m willing to concede that a silent partner might be helpful, but that’s all. We don’t need any interference at the management level.”  
  
“If you didn’t need interference, your company wouldn’t be in trouble to begin with.” Shiro sat back as Crossley removed his sorbetto dish from the table. “As long as I’m the majority shareholder, you can count on me interfering.”  
  
“I’ll buy back your shares.”  
  
“You don’t have the capital for that.”  
  
“We will!” Griffin’s forearm hit the table as Crossley deftly saved the sorbetto dish from being dashed to the floor. “The Garrison is commissioning us to build them a fleet of jet trainers!”  
  
“Are you sure about that?” Shiro asked mildly. “My sources tell me that contract is buried in Appropriations.”  
  
From the shock on Griffin’s face this was news to him. “How would you know that?”  
  
“He’s bluffing.” Hawkins put a hand on his grandson’s shoulder.  
  
Shiro leaned back in his chair again, arms folded. “I assure you, I am not bluffing.”  
  
“Grandfather I beg your pardon, but I can’t stay here and listen to any more of this.” Griffin stood up from the table and tossed his napkin into his chair. “It was a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance Ser McClain. I wish I could say the same for your date.”  
  
“It seems my own appetite has disappeared as well.” Hawkins stood and dropped his napkin to his seat. “Ser McClain, the best of luck to you. Mister Shirogane, a word of warning. You do not want to make an enemy out of me.”  
  
Shiro stood to meet him eye to eye. “That was never my intention.”  
  
“Intentions earn nothing if not turned into actions.”  
  
As Hawkins followed his grandson back to the foyer, Shiro turned to look down at Lance and asked, “How about you, is your appetite ruined?”  
  
Lance thought Shiro sounded just a wee bit confrontational but really, was he kidding?   
  
“Sorry to dispel the illusion that I have delicate omega sensibilities, but it takes more than people storming away from the dinner table to ruin my appetite.”   
  
If it didn’t, he’d have never finished a meal at his mother’s table. Someone was always storming off back home. He wondered if that still happened now that he was gone.  
  
Shiro chuckled and sat back down. “Well all right then, let’s finish our dinner. Crossley?” He flagged the waiter. “It’ll just be the two of us.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro was quiet on the ride home. Well. Quieter. He wasn’t exactly a noisy guy in general, but there was a tension overlaying the quiet, like the stillness before a roll of thunder. Lance rifled through his mental toolbox trying to figure out a way to encourage Shiro to relax.   
  
Sex seemed obvious, but this was a man who needed to circle the notion of a tryst like a stray cat looking for a lap to sneak into, Lance had noticed that the first night. He considered his seduction options as he went into the penthouse’s walk-in closet to take off his new Cuban heel brogues and shuffle into his new sneakers.  
  
He emerged to find that Shiro had disappeared from the spot he’d taken up hovering over the writing desk, but the balcony door was flung wide with the solar shades still closed. Lance felt a moment of disquietude. He didn’t think Shiro would do anything rash over a contentious dinner meeting in which he emerged the victor, but he’d only known the alpha for twenty-four hours. He hustled over to the open door to find it had been propped open with the desk chair, which Shiro was sitting in.  
  
“I thought you never used the balcony?” Lance slipped past him to stand by the balustrade. Below them, L.A. glowed in the night like fluorescent coral.  
  
“I’m expanding my horizons,” Shiro replied drily. “Nice shoes.”  
  
“Thanks for giving them to me.” Lance hoisted himself up on a support column so he could sit facing Shiro. “So, you want to talk about it?”  
  
“What I want is immaterial.” Shiro had taken a bottle of Hoegaarden from the wet bar and was rolling it in his hands. “Aside from you getting down from there, that is completely material and I would like for you to do that now.”  
  
“If I do, can I sit on your lap?”  
  
“If it will make you get down from there, yes.”  
  
Lance wasn’t about to waste that invitation. He jumped down and settled into Shiro’s warm lap.  
  
“Thank you.” Shiro actually sounded like he meant it. He looked restless, rumpled, and not ready for a sexual encounter.  
  
“Sure.” Lance busied himself loosening the tie he’d knotted that very morning around Shiro’s neck. “So, why do you feel like what you want isn’t relevant?”  
  
Shiro huffed a laugh and took a swig of beer. “It stopped being relevant once I gained the foothold necessary to wrest control of the company away from its board of directors.”  
  
Lance’s fingers paused in their task. “But, you own the shares.”  
  
Shiro placed one big hand around Lance’s two slimmer ones, halting his fidgeting. “Once you achieve that level of power over another person’s destiny, it’s not really about you anymore. Or at least it shouldn’t be.”  
  
Lance was starting to get a notion of what was conflicting the alpha. “You respect Mister Hawkins.”  
  
Shiro swallowed another mouthful of beer. “It doesn’t matter. His manifest destiny shouldn’t take precedence either. It’s not just his life affected, or his grandson’s.”  
  
Yet it was bothering Shiro anyway or he wouldn’t be punishing himself by forcing himself into proximity to the balcony. It may even be that there was something else bothering Shiro, something closer to home.   
  
“I was sorry to hear about your father.”  
  
Shiro grimaced and took another pull of beer. Bingo.  
  
“Would it help to have someone to listen? If you want to talk about him.”  
  
“I haven’t engaged in an interaction with him that wasn’t mediated by social ritual for over ten years.” Shiro leaned back in his chair and looked up at the stars. “My ex-boyfriend was speaking to him more candidly than I was by the end. I don’t know what I’d even have to say about him.”  
  
Lance was not inexperienced in the ways and mores of offering comfort, but this was venturing into uncharted territory for him. Everything he knew about his own father, he knew secondhand. When the day had finally come that he’d discovered he’d had something to miss, it was an idea of a person rather than the person himself leaving the empty space behind. Shiro’s grief sounded more like it was borne of familiarity, but a very uncomfortable sort.  
  
“We don’t have to talk.” Sometimes that was the last thing people wanted, Lance knew from personal experience. “We could just Netflix and chill.”  
  
Shiro half-smiled and skimmed his fingers over Lance’s cheek. Moonlight gentled the strong angles of his face and made his eyes glimmer like the ocean at dusk. “We can watch movies another night.” He sighed and then with no warning stood up, lifting Lance to his feet with one corded arm. “Here. Take this.” He handed the beer to Lance. “Finish it if you like. I’ll be back in a few hours.”  
  
Lance took the beer in bereft hands. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Just downstairs.” Shiro headed for the door. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge. You don’t have to wait up for me.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance slipped out of his jumpsuit, putting it in the closet on a hanger just in case Shiro didn’t want to spring for dry cleaning, then put the bathrobe on over his hose and sneakers to create an impromptu lounging ensemble.  
  
The penthouse refrigerator was stocked with enough snacking options to graze through mealtimes with no real need to emerge from the room or call room service. This must be why gourmet meals in fancy restaurants came in such tiny portions: the diners weren’t that hungry anymore by the time they got to the restaurant. Lance took out some melon balls and prosciutto and brought them and the beer into the living room, where he queued up one of his all time favorite movies from the On Demand menu.  
  
_“Hey! Hey baby, what’s going on here?”_  
  
As much as he loved this movie, though, and as delicious as the snacks were, it felt uncanny to be enjoying them in this place alone.   
  
_“Here, cat! Cat!”_  
  
It felt like being the only mourner at a funeral he’d stumbled across by accident.  
  
_♬ Moon river... ♬_  
  
Lance rose from the couch while on the television screen a couple with a cat in their arms kissed in the rain. He drifted over to the phone on the desk and picked up the receiver.  
  
_“Front desk, may I help you?”_  
  
It wasn’t Leifsdottir. It must be the night shift receptionist with the blue pixie cut, what was her name? Cindy?  
  
“Hi, this is Lance in the penthouse. I’m with Shiro– Mister Shirogane. He went downstairs a couple of hours ago, is he still down there?”  
  
A few minutes later, Regris led him to the patio-side bar and lounge. It was the witching hour and all the chairs were flipped over onto the tables as the last shift cleaned up for the night. Through the windows, Lance could see that the market umbrellas for the patio seating had been taken in. Piano music, hauntingly familiar, flooded from a raised area at the back of the interior lounge.  
  
It was Shiro. Lance watched in fascination as his fingers stroked the keys with expert skill. The spiraling melody sounded like something he’d heard at both of his sisters’ presentation parties, but the counterpoint was missing. As he drew nearer, Lance noticed he wasn’t the only one listening. A wash rag moved sluggishly across the onyx bar and a broom swept with an aimless lack of urgency as the closing staff lingered to catch every note of music. Shiro played a cadence with a flourish and looked up in surprise when his overlooked audience suddenly clapped.  
  
“Ah... thanks fellas.” He half-turned on the piano seat and spotted Lance.  
  
“You’re a man of many talents,” Lance said as he stepped up on the dais where the boudoir grand piano had pride of place. “Ave Maria?”  
  
“The Well-Tempered Clavier, actually.” Shiro smiled to take the sting out of the correction. “Gounod incorporated Bach’s prelude into his composition. You’ve got a good ear.”  
  
“Thanks.” Lance slid into the space between the piano keys and the bench so he could peer down at Shiro’s classically handsome face. “So, you came down here to rock out?”  
  
“Something like that.” The faded scar across the bridge of Shiro’s nose was more visible under the spotlight illuminating the piano. “‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak.’”  
  
Lance recognized the quote but didn’t say so. “See, I was hoping I could help you out with your hard rocks.” He didn’t think Shiro had come down here seeking academic discourse to bend his knotted oak.  
  
Lance gathered from the embers igniting in his cinder gaze that Shiro had caught his meaning.  
  
“Gentlemen,” he said without taking his eyes off Lance, “would it be too much to ask for you to take a break?”  
  
“We were already done,” the short one with the slicked back hair confessed. “We just liked the music and didn’t want to disturb you.”  
  
“Yep,” said the tall one with the curly hair, “room’s all yours, just don’t mess it up again, alright?”  
  
“I think we can hold to that agreement,” Shiro said as the workers cleared out of the room.  
  
“There’s probably security cameras in here,” Lance breathed as Shiro grabbed him by the hips to position him against the keyboard. He had actually been hoping to lure Shiro back upstairs.  
  
He and Keith had both been very careful not to send any nudes or appear in any homemade sex videos, neither liking the risk of losing control of their digital identities. Keith had perfected a method of catching hidden cameras with a flashlight and a paper towel roll and always told the clients up front that if he found a camera the job was canceled. They’d had to let go of a number of lucrative jobs because of that, which was one of the things that made Lance believe Keith wanted something different out of life, whatever he might say to the contrary.  
  
“This is an establishment that caters to the very wealthy,” Shiro said as he loosened the sash on Lance’s bathrobe. “They know that if any unauthorized videos of their clientele taken on these premises are ever released into the wild then they stand to lose a lot of revenue.”  
  
“So I’m safe?” Lance ran his fingers through Shiro’s silky silver hair.  
  
Shiro kissed his sternum, hands warming his rib cage against the cool air in the room. “You’ll always be safe when you’re with me.”  
  
Abruptly he stood, pressing Lance back against jangling keys, hands reaching under the robe as he kissed him. He tasted tart like coriander from the beer, the resin note in his scent sweetening and intensifying as he nipped at Lance’s lips and plundered his mouth with his tongue. Lance clutched onto his shoulders, reeling under the sensory deluge.  
  
Just as fast he pulled back, and then suddenly Lance was hauled up in Shiro’s arms and deposited upon the lid of the piano, his feet striking the keys in a sharp interval which he felt reverberate to his core. Shiro grabbed his hips again, pulling his ass flush with the edge of the lid.  
  
“What is this that you’re wearing?” There was a hint of a rumble in Shiro’s tone.  
  
“I think they’re called mantyhose.” That was what Coran had called them, though Lance had not noticed that term anywhere on the packaging.  
  
Shiro’s lips started to quirk into a smile. “You took off everything else but you kept those on?”  
  
“I’ve never owned anything like this before.” A high trill of indignation escaped with that confession.  
  
“Then I’m glad I was able to provide them for you.” He was definitely rumbling now. “Lean back.”  
  
Slightly mollified, Lance leaned back so that he was nearly prone on the piano lid, the weight of his upper torso held up by his elbows. Shiro had his full attention, as he crooked his fingers under the waistband of the hose and started peeling them down. Shiro raised his eyes to meet Lance’s, silently asking him to lift his hips.  
  
“No knot,” Lance reminded him.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Shiro said. “You’re safe, remember?”  
  
Lance raised his hips. Shiro kissed his abs and pulled the hose down his thighs, rolling one leg completely bare and leaving the stocking in place up to the thigh on the other. Lance’s cocklet saluted as the scent of his slick dispersed into the air conditioning. He was laid out before Shiro like a banquet, and no sooner had that thought entered his mind then Shiro’s hot mouth was swallowing him down.  
  
Lance’s back arched up off the piano lid as Shiro’s tongue massaged his head and shaft. His hips tried to pump; Shiro held them down effortlessly. In an embarrassingly short amount of time he popped like a piccolo of bubbly. He lay back on the piano lid, limp as a cooked noodle, then started to rise up again when Shiro repositioned his stockinged leg over his shoulder.  
  
“Relax,” Shiro rumbled. “My knot won’t get past the cloth.”  
  
Lance looked down his own body between them. Shiro had taken his swollen cock out of his underwear and trousers, then re-buttoned his trousers around it to make himself a homespun knot guard.  
  
“I’ll take care of you. I promise.”  
  
“Okay. I’m trusting you.”  
  
Shiro held his hips in a sturdy grip, with Lance’s right leg securely hooked over his left shoulder as he slipped right in. When he bottomed out, Lance felt the softness of brushed fabric against his inner thighs. Shiro’s strokes were long and languid, the angle on top of the piano giving him the leverage to pace himself more slowly than he had the previous night. This time Lance felt every thud of Shiro’s heartbeat inside of him, no barrier to mute it.  
  
Lance felt himself winding up like a mainspring in time with Shiro’s pulse, his thrusts, and the occasional glissade of notes when Shiro’s knuckles hit the keyboard, sending vibrations traveling up and through him. Shiro turned his head to bite lightly on Lance’s stockinged leg as it bounced gently against his shoulder with each push in. Lance was too close to another orgasm to devote any brain cells to telling him not to put a run in his new hose, he kept hitting that spot, oh fuck right there.  
  
“I’m... I’m gonna cum...”  
  
“Go on, I’ve got you.”  
  
So he did, the contractions a warm well swirling up and out from his solar plexus, sending waves of pleasure from its nexus as all of the colors of the light spectrum danced behind his closed eyelids. He was lost to the flood of sensation, until he felt his legs being bent knee-to-chest.  
  
“I need you to push back, okay?” Shiro pressed Lance’s long, narrow feet flat against his chest, the cotton soft and cool against Lance’s one bare foot. Shiro panted with the effort of holding back. “Push back against me with your feet.”  
  
Lance understood. He nodded, and with that, Shiro stopped holding back. His hips rocked forward like a metronome, relentlessly hammering. Lance heard a soft pip that might have been a button popping and kept steady pressure on Shiro’s chest, applying compressive force. Never before had he been so glad to have jackrabbit feet. Shiro never took his hands off them, though he squeezed them uncomfortably tightly at one point. Then his hips stuttered and he stilled, cock throbbing as a surge of hot semen left his body. Lance could feel his knot straining against the fabric preventing it from following the same path, before Shiro released his feet and pulled out.  
  
Lance raised himself up on his elbows again and found a lovely creampie forming on the glossy ebonized wood.  
  
“Now you’ve done it,” he tsked. “We’re gonna have to clean off this piano or there’ll be spit in our room service and God only knows what on our towels.”  
  
He knew those workers had been damn serious when they’d said not to mess up the room. His whole family had similar employment back home. Or at least, they had when he’d left.  
  
Shiro slumped against the piano, laughing. “I trust you’re right about that,” he said.  
  
Well, he was definitely relaxed now, so, mission accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the fun for me in doing these is turning these characters loose in these familiar situations and then seeing what they do. Some of their conversations wound up going to places I was not expecting at all.


	4. Hot Child in the City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance goes shopping and then to a polo match, and finds out that the thirst is real. Shiro gets figuratively whopped upside the head with an epiphany (while literally whopping upside a head). Rolo and Nyma are up to no good and Lotor has an agenda, of sorts. Keith and Hunk decide to give it a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kudos, and thanks to blue wonderer and SpaceSquirrelQueen again for the comments, you all are awesome!

Finally, he’d found the cat. It poked its marmalade face out of the cardboard box and mewed pitifully.  
  
“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere!” It felt like Lance had been searching for years, but now here he was at last. “Now we can go home.”  
  
He blinked rainwater out of his eyes as he knelt in the cold damp alley and lifted the cat up out of the box. The cat turned its green-gold eyes up to Lance and said, “I’m giving you my American Express black card and I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from using it to buy a cat.”  
  
Lance blinked sleep out of his eyes as he sat up in silk sheets. This was his second morning waking up naked as a jaybird in the penthouse suite, and it was just as disorienting as the first.  
  
“Lance? Did you hear me?”  
  
Shiro was already up, groomed and dressed, clearly one of those unnatural morning people. He even had a perfectly folded pocket square adorning his perfectly starched chest.  
  
“Sorry.” Lance fell sideways on the satin-covered down pillows. “I was dreaming about a cat.”  
  
Shiro sat on the bed next to him with a shiny black card held out in one hand. “Now I want you to think about horses.”  
  
Lance accepted the card and waggled his eyebrows at Shiro. “Are you giving me a pony?”  
  
“Very funny.” Shiro caressed Lance’s side over the sheets and then lightly smacked his bottom. “Up and at ‘em. You need morning attire to wear to a polo match, and at least one backup outfit in case of last minute social plans.”  
  
Lance wouldn’t object to seeing Coran again, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get everything Shiro was asking for at the department store. “The morning attire doesn’t have to be high fashion, does it?”  
  
“Don’t even think about trying to be frugal with the polo outfit,” Shiro warned. “It’s a charity event, so the dress code is stricter. Off the rack won’t suffice.”  
  
So that was a resounding ‘no’ to spending the whole day shooting the shit with Coran. “Yay.”  
  
“What’s the matter?” Shiro cupped Lance’s jaw to tilt his face up so he could meet his eyes. “I thought for sure you’d be hyped for some retail therapy.”  
  
“It’s just harder to get them to sell you anything at the swankier stores.” It sure as hell wasn’t therapeutic. He wondered how professional shoppers dealt with the stress.  
  
“What do you mean?” Shiro was nonplused. “Just wave money in their faces.”  
  
“I’m sure that works if you’re you.” Lance chuffed a laugh. “Didn’t work so great when I tried it.”  
  
Shiro got that look on his face that Lance was fast becoming familiar with, that ‘I did it my way’ smirk that probably won him many a boardroom stare-down.  
  
“We’re just going to have to fix that.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“They’re looking at me again.”  
  
“Of course they’re looking at you.” Shiro led Lance by the hand down Rodeo Drive. “You’re as bright as a new penny.”  
  
Lance had been self-conscious about heading down this street again even in his much more acceptable casual clothing purchased the day before, so they had raided Shiro’s travel wardrobe and come up with a pink button down and stretch khakis, both of which Lance had to roll to hide the fact that they were too long on him. Shiro thought he looked quite fetching wearing his clothes. His inner alpha wanted to preen about it, in fact, and now he was getting self-conscious.  
  
Right across the street was a store with ‘Terra’ in a curlicue font on the sign. It had an assortment of clothing in the window display, in colors of deep indigo, bright blue and poppy red, bringing back to Shiro’s mind that technicolor moment when Lance had put his coat on under a street lamp in front of the hotel. “Let’s try here.”  
  
They were approached immediately upon entering by a slim beta man looking very dapper in a linen skinny suit.  
  
“I’m Mister Graysen, the general manager,” he said, offering his hand to Shiro. “What can I do for you fine gentlefolk today?”  
  
“Mister Graysen, pleased to meet you.” Shiro accepted the handshake. “I am Takashi Shirogane.”  
  
He could tell by the flash of unfeigned avidity that Graysen had heard of him. Shiro wasn’t the most famous practitioner of his line of work and that was by design, but he was hardly unknown either, especially among the moneyed and those who made a living furnishing their needs.  
  
Good. This errand might just go more smoothly. Shiro was all about things going smoothly.  
  
“What we need today are clothes as stunning as this omega standing next to me, because he is going to be wearing them you see, and I am going to be paying for them,” he leaned forward slightly, “and Mister Graysen.”  
  
The pupils of Graysen’s eyes had practically turned to dollar signs. “Yes sir?”  
  
“I am prepared to part with an unearthly amount of money.”  
  
Cha-ching! “Welcome to Terra! Would either of you care for refreshments?”  
  
Graysen then plopped Lance down on an overstuffed loveseat and called out his three assistants, Plaxum, Blumfump and Swirn, to parade various articles of clothing before him like a haute couture chorus line.  
  
Shiro took up a post next to the jewelry counter to simultaneously check his phone for messages and watch Lance’s face light up in wonder. This was well worth interrupting his schedule to attend to personally. The sales clerks began offering accessories for Lance to try on, probably trying to get a better feel for his tastes before turning him loose in the dressing room.   
  
A beaded cloche cap was placed over Lance’s head; he turned to Shiro and moved his head around to make the fringe fly. Shiro couldn’t help but smile at the playfulness, but he shook his head. Lance shrugged. One of the sales clerks replaced the beaded cloche with a newsboy cap. Lance gave him an eyelash flutter from under its low brim. Shiro nodded and gave him a thumbs up.  
  
Graysen approached Shiro while the sales clerks were distracting Lance with a demonstration of the many and varied ways of wearing an infinity scarf.  
  
“If I may be so bold as to ask sir, just how unearthly of a budget do you require? Is it in the region of Mars? Perhaps as far as Saturn?”  
  
“Have you ever heard of the Kuiper Belt?”  
  
“I have sir, and may I also say that your taste is out of this world.”  
  
“You may,” Shiro glanced down at his phone when it buzzed with Lotor’s name on the caller ID, “but flattery will go farther with me if you spend it on him.” Shiro nodded in Lance’s direction.  
  
“Oh! Of course, sir.” Off he went to help Lance spend Shiro’s money.   
  
Shiro had no qualms about this. Outside of the not-inconsiderable funds he earned through his profession, he’d received a fair amount of money through his father’s bequest. Thanks to certain conditions on that bequeathal, there was only so much of it that he was permitted to donate to his charitable foundation. If he didn’t spend some on Lance, then it would most likely wind up accumulating in a money market account that would eventually be inherited by the younger half-brother who resented Shiro’s existence.  
  
Shiro answered his insistently buzzing phone.  
  
 _“Shiro! Why are you not in your office? I’ve been calling for eons.”_  
  
“Good morning to you too.” One of the sales clerks set a demitasse of espresso down next to Shiro’s elbow; he lifted it and sipped. “What can I do for you, Lotor?”  
  
 _“We’ve received word that Hawkins is planning to counter your takeover bid.”_  
  
Shiro didn’t ask how Lotor had acquired this information. He had recently begun to suspect that Lotor had turned to corporate espionage to gather dirt on his legal targets. The further Shiro kept from Lotor’s more unsavory machinations, the less blowback he’d experience if Lotor was ever found out. Hopefully he could finish this job without any unnecessary drama.  
  
“He’s got grit, I’ll give him that.” Shiro smiled in spite of himself. “What he hasn’t got is enough money to make that anything more than a delaying tactic.”  
  
 _“He may be trying to stage an employee buyout.”_  
  
“I doubt it.” Hawkins might have grit and integrity, but he also had more than his fair share of pride. Proud men did not turn to their employees for help in a bind (and the more fool, them).  
  
 _“The investors are threatening to break down my door over this. I’d be chuffed if you were here to work your unique brand of charisma on them. Otherwise we might have a mutiny on our hands.”_  
  
Lotor had no shortage of charisma of his own, but it was of a different sort. Other alphas wanted to be Lotor, but they wouldn’t follow him without protest. Not like they would Shiro. It had been an apple of discord between them since their school days together when Shiro was always being voted captain and Lotor his second in whatever sports or clubs they pursued.  
  
“Stall them, I’ll be there.”  
  
He hung up, inhaled the last of his espresso and strode over to where Lance was chattering happily (and knowledgeably) about fabrics and seams. Sales clerks scattered out of Shiro’s path like darting minnows.  
  
“Lance.”  
  
Lance trilled up at him, the low trill of a happy omega. Shiro smiled to hear it and paused to savor it. Soon his ears would be testament to the barking complaints of unhappy alphas.  
  
“I have to go to work for a while. I’m leaving the credit card here with you. You may purchase whatever your heart desires.”  
  
“Have no fear,” Graysen promised earnestly, “we will take good care of your omega while you’re away.”  
  
Shiro opened his mouth to say that Lance wasn’t really his omega, then thought better of it and nodded before striding out the door. If this little fiction eased the way for Lance to purchase what he needed, then what harm was there in it?  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I still think we should be following the other one.”  
  
Nyma glanced sideways at Rolo before returning her gaze to the rear view mirror in his truck camper. Framed through the back window of the Starcraft mounted on the bed of his old Dodge pickup was a now-familiar pumpkin-orange coffee-run-mobile parked at the opposite curb.  
  
“We’ll get to Lance, babe,” she promised. “For now, let’s stick with the bird in the hand.”  
  
She still couldn’t believe Lance had managed to snag himself an uptown client without enlisting their professional assistance, but she’d deal with that situation soon enough.   
  
First they had to educate this moron who thought he could court Keith without paying the finder’s fee.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Hunk didn’t know why the hell he was so nervous. He came from a nice family, he had a great job, he even had a prime rate mortgage on a house with a picket fence. He had plenty to offer in courtship. He should project confidence!  
  
He stood up straight in his very nice suit and adjusted the weight of his courting gift in his arms, which were beginning to feel the strain. There were no tables in this courtyard. Just lots and lots of plants and a tremendous smell like Humboldt County on a midsummer’s night. Maybe a picnic table should be his next courting gift.  
  
Or maybe not. It might not remain in the courtyard for very long. He’d had to bribe the landlord to get a message to Keith, and then started to have his doubts about whether his gift would actually make it to Keith when he saw the covetous look in the dude’s eyes, and so decided to deliver it himself, and now here he stood amidst the funky greenery.  
  
He probably should have taken the fire escape again. He was thinking about leaving his post and doing just that when Keith finally strolled in. He was lean, graceful and aloof in all black, like Aunt Leia’s Bombay cat Hiwa.  
  
“Lance isn’t here,” was how he chose to greet his would-be suitor.  
  
“I know.” Hunk had seen him leave the hotel with Mister Shirogane that morning during his daily check-in with his department managers. “I’m here to see you.” He couldn’t help feeling like that shouldn’t need clarification.  
  
“What for?” Keith’s incomparable eyes fell on the package in Hunk’s arms. “What’s that.” His tone flattened.  
  
Lance had dropped hints that he might react like this. Hunk refused to be discouraged. Confidence!  
  
“It’s for you.”  
  
Keith stopped short with his hands in his hoodie pockets. “I don’t need any more clothes.”  
  
“They’re not clothes.” Boy, was Hunk ever glad he’d listened to Lance on that point. “It’s food!”  
  
Keith’s face opened up in a beautiful moment of disarmed surprise before closing off in a scowl. “Do I look too skinny to you?”  
  
“No, you look perfect,” came out before Hunk could even think of editing his response.  
  
He was rewarded with another of those glimmers of pure, unfiltered surprise before raised voices coming from the vicinity of the office distracted both of them.  
  
 _“You still owe me money from the last time I let you two bozos in here!”_  
  
 _“And we told you we’d pay your cut when we get our cut, that was the deal!”_  
  
“Come with me.”  
  
Keith placed a hand on Hunk’s elbow when he said that, the first time he’d voluntarily touched him– well, ever. It gave Hunk a little spark of warmth as he turned away from the fracas by the office.  
  
“I will.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Once Graysen explained to Lance that he could have his alterations done on site and the clothes delivered to the hotel, the possibilities became endless. He tried on rompers, cardigan twin-sets, shirtwaist jumpsuits, shoes of all kinds and more hats than he could count. He added to his hose collection (he was becoming a fan). He even tried on some lingerie. Best of all though, he found a morning dress outfit, and it was pretty awesome if he did say so himself.  
  
After squaring his account with Graysen, Lance left the store dressed in some of his new purchases: a tweed sport coat over a white linen shirt with wingtip shoes, amber-tint sunglasses, and the most expensive pair of jeans he had ever owned in his young life, with both a weight and buttery softness he’d never felt before from a denim garment. He was starting to get hungry and also thinking about paying Coran a visit, but first, he had a little matter of retribution to attend to.  
  
Kral Zera had the French doors open again trying to attract visitors, so Lance visited. Ladnok tried to greet him; he breezed on past her. He spotted a goofy braided ‘do ahead of him, messing with dead flowers again: target acquired.  
  
Gnov turned as he approached, took in his outfit and the shopping bags over his arms, and smiled in a way that she probably thought wasn’t shark-like at all. “Well, hello there. What can I interest you in today?”  
  
“You really don’t remember me, do you?”  
  
Gnov’s face blanked. She was likely searching her mental Rolodex for the alpha she was sure she must have seen him with.  
  
“I’ll refresh your memory: it was yesterday. I was less well-dressed than I am right now. You were a jerk. You work on commission, right?”  
  
“Yes.” Her facial expression was like tilt on a slot machine.  
  
“I thought so.” Lance nodded sagely as he left the store. “Welp, gotta go spend more money in places that aren’t here. See ya!”  
  
He knew, objectively speaking, that maintaining an air of exclusivity was a part of these shop workers’ jobs, but there was never any excuse to be as nasty about it as Gnov and Ladnok had gone out of their way to behave.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You got my favorites.” Keith’s eyes were wide like a child’s at Christmas as he lifted six packs of soda pop and cartons of snacks out of the large box and stacked them on the kitchenette’s tiny counter. “How did you know?”  
  
“I asked Lance,” Hunk admitted. He was terrible at subterfuge.  
  
Keith squinted at him, his suspicious air coming back. Had that come across as stalkery?  
  
“I didn’t want to get anything you were allergic to,” Hunk stammered, because this was true. “I didn’t want to get anything you wouldn’t like either.” Also true.  
  
“Lance has got a big mouth,” Keith said.  
  
This was probably true as well, but Hunk owed the big mouth a few times over now, so he didn’t comment on that. “I want you to know I’m serious.”  
  
Keith stood with arms crossed. “About what? Be specific.”  
  
This omega showed no patience for polite evasions and Hunk liked that. “About courting you.” He liked that a lot.  
  
“You know I’m a whore, right?”  
  
Hunk also got the sense that sometimes Keith used his sharp tongue to protect himself rather than to cut the crap. That was alright, because Hunk was sure he had patience enough for the both of them.   
  
“I know you’re a sex worker.”  
  
Keith gave a short trill of disbelief. “And you’re still interested?”  
  
“I’m not going to tell you I don’t care, because that would be a lie.” Hunk took a deep breath. “I care. But it’s not my decision to make. It’s yours. So I’m just asking you to give me a chance.”  
  
Keith’s scent was a whorl of deep cocoa and spice. “You barely know me.”  
  
“I know you care about your friends and you’re generous with people who are kind to them. You’ve got an amazing bullshit detector and you’ve got good taste in snacks and cities. Sure that’s not a whole lot, but that’s what the courting is for.” Hunk tried to impress his sincerity on Keith through eye contact. “To get to know each other better.”  
  
Keith turned and started putting food away in the cabinet and fridge. “Your parents will hate me.”  
  
“My mom will love you, and my chichi will go along with anything she says.” This was one hundred percent true. Hunk’s mother had a first rate bullshit detector of her own and she didn’t need alpha pheromones to get her way.  
  
Keith paused and turned back to Hunk, head tilted in curiosity, and asked in Japanese, ｢Do you understand what I’m saying right now?｣  
  
Keith’s accent was different from what Hunk heard at home. It had an unfamiliar melodious twang, but he understood it. ｢Yes, I understand you. Lance didn’t give you the full introduction, did he? My name is Tsuyoshi Garrett but you can keep calling me Hunk if you want to.｣  
  
Keith’s half smile was like the first glimmer of dawn. “If we’re gonna do this courting thing right we might as well know each other’s full names. I’m Keith Kogane, it’s nice to formally meet you.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You were right.” Lotor removed a flask from a hidden compartment in his desk and kicked back in his executive chair. “Hawkins is tapping every asset he has except for his own laborers. How fortunate for us that he banks at a publicly traded institution where you own enough shares to block resolutions.”  
  
Shiro accepted the flask offered across the mahogany desk and was not surprised to discover that the contents tasted of smoke, toffee and alcohol. “Isn’t it just.”  
  
Lotor’s platinum blond eyebrows went up. “You could sound a little more enthused about it.’  
  
Shiro took another sip of single malt Scotch whiskey. “You know what my favorite kind of toy was when I was kid?”  
  
“All right, I’ll play.” Lotor folded his hands over the top of his desk, deceptively neat because he kept all his paperwork in a disorganized clump under its hinged lid, just like he had in school. “What was little Shiro’s favorite toy?”  
  
“Construction sets.” Shiro slid the flask back at Lotor across the desktop. “Legos, Meccano, Spacewarp. Anything with girders.”  
  
“I’m assuming this was before you fell off a real one.”  
  
Trust Lotor to go for the throat even if it flew in the face of good taste and presumed friendship. Shiro decided to ignore Lotor’s slip in classy conduct.  
  
“I’ve never forgotten how much I enjoyed the satisfaction of completing a project.” Shiro leaned back in the guest chair and stretched out his feet. “Seeing how it functioned, putting it through its paces. It was a tangible pleasure. Even though I know some aspects of the traditional business model encourage unnecessary risk to life and limb, I can understand why men like Hawkins hang on so tightly to their vision of it.”  
  
“Understanding them makes you a better killer.”  
  
Shiro blinked out of his reverie to stare at Lotor across the expanse of his desk. He had not set out on his career path with the intention of becoming a killer.  
  
“A mercy killer, if that makes you feel any better,” Lotor amended dispassionately.  
  
It didn’t.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance ambled up to the huge double doors with TIFFANY & CO in elegant script on the transom. He was not planning on going inside, though. At least, not today. Instead, he stepped just past the entrance and peered into a picture window on the right side of the massive doorway. In the window display, a teal blue lioness lounged on a pedestal, with a sunstone ring for a crown and a moonstone bracelet around her sculpted neck.  
  
Lance reached inside the canvas tote the coffee shop had sold him and pulled out a to-go cup of espresso con panna, carefully removing the lid to get the full whipped cream experience. Then he took out the bear claw. It was sticky with frosting and they hadn’t skimped on the almond paste either. He was glad the Barista had given him plenty of napkins.  
  
Lunch at Tiffany’s. What a sweet end to a perfect outing. If he kept nothing else from this week, he could hold onto this memory at the very least.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I had a good time today.” Keith stood in the open window, afternoon’s light glowing over his face like a nimbus in a Baroque painting.  
  
“Me too.” Hunk stood outside on the fire escape. “I don’t feel real good about leaving you here.”  
  
“I’ll be fine,” Keith shrugged it off. “I’ve got your number and you’ve got mine.”  
  
Hunk wanted him to have more than his phone number. Hunk wanted his scent on Keith, but it was too soon to ask. For now, he’d have to be satisfied with his residual scent hovering around Keith’s apartment after they’d spent Hunk’s half-day off together.   
  
Keith had noodles and the ingredients to make a simple dashi in his pantry, so they’d put together a quick ramen lunch. Hunk felt like an adult at a child’s tea party sitting at that little dinette set, but he quickly forgot about it because was so easy to talk to Keith. He could have sat in that uncomfortable chair until his butt went numb, but texts from work were accumulating on his phone, and Keith started giving off a scent like Red Hots that indicated he was thinking about getting back to work himself.  
  
Hunk was trying his best not to think about Keith getting back to work.  
  
“Is it okay if I visit you again?”  
  
“You probably better use the fire escape next time.”  
  
Hunk would, and when he did he’d have more creature comforts for Keith to enjoy, and he didn’t care if Lance thought it was hazardous he was also going to fix that overhead light fixture.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance flitted about the dining room making sure everything was ready. Brahms Symphony No. 4 was queued up on the sound system. The bottle of rosé was chilling in an ice bucket. He had ordered a cheese and charcuterie board from room service because that way they wouldn’t have to worry about it getting cold if they didn’t eat it right away.  
  
Also, there was the tie. Lance had purchased it from Coran that very afternoon, a length of silver silk with a fleur-de-lys pattern picked out in a lighter silver thread. Lance tied it around his neck with a Nicky knot, picked up the remote for the sound system and took a seat.  
  
He didn’t have to wait long. As soon as he heard the click of the key-card in the lock, he hit play. Sweet violins rolled forth like a river to the sea and Shiro followed, investigating the sound. The look on his face when he came into the dining room was absolutely priceless.  
  
“Hello, darling. How was your day?” Lance twirled the tie in one hand. It was the only stitch of clothing on his body.  
  
“I thought omegas preferred less restrictive neckwear.” Shiro’s tone was cool but his eyes were heating up as they assessed the buck-ass naked omega draped across a dining room chair.  
  
“Yeah,” Lance stroked the necktie, “The thing is, I actually got this tie for you.”  
  
“Oh, you did?” Still trying to play it cool.  
  
“Mm hmm. But then I got a little antsy waiting for you and I figured if I couldn’t have you on me, I’d settle for the tie.”  
  
The cool cat alpha facade disappeared in a puff of smoky pheromones. Shiro moved panther-fast. One minute he was standing in the doorway, the next he was laying Lance out across the trestle table alongside the charcuterie board.  
  
“Look at you,” Shiro rumbled, “a treat for the eyes.” His lifted his gaze to the windows where the stars and the city lights glittered. “What if a helicopter were to fly by right now, some whirlybird reporter doing traffic on the 9s, and they saw you here like this?”  
  
Lance didn’t think they’d see more than a silhouette through the privacy tint, but his imagination filled in a scenario where there was no privacy tint and it sent an unexpected jolt of sexual arousal through him. From the way Shiro’s nostrils suddenly flared, he could smell it.  
  
“My little exhibitionist. I bet you taste as good as you smell.” Shiro flicked the tie out of the way and drew a line from Lance’s breastbone to his pubic bone, leaving a cool and creamy sensation in its wake.   
  
Lance tucked his chin to look down his body. There was a smear of white running all the way to his happy trail, and it kind of smelled like spunk, but if it was then Shiro worked even faster than he moved.  
  
“Can’t have brie without compote,” Shiro said, and moved his hand somewhere behind Lance’s head. When it came back into view, it was with a palm full of cherry sauce, which Shiro laid down over the brie that he’d sneakily scooped up first. Shiro’s tongue followed where the food had gone, a warm rasp that made Lance’s belly quiver.   
  
“Mmm. Delicious.” Shiro looked up, eyes gleaming like pewter. “So thoughtful of you to order cold cuts for dinner, too. I do love salty meat.”  
  
Thus commenced the second mind-blowing BJ Lance had received from Shiro since meeting him mere days before. Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be the one dispensing the BJs? Who cares, orgasms! This one ended with Lance a shuddering, sticky wreck on the table, his legs thrown over Shiro’s shoulders as he licked him through the aftershocks.  
  
Shiro looked up, lips glistening with Lance’s slick. “You ready for more?”  
  
Lance wobbled an affirmative. “Yes.”  
  
Shiro stood. Lance heard unzipping, and then he was being filled, oh so tight. “Shiro!”  
  
“I’ve got you.”  
  
He did. When he was fully seated, it was cloth that kissed Lance’s bare haunches, not flesh. Shiro had a more direct angle fucking into him on the dining room table than he had on the piano lid, able to set a punishing pace as he held Lance’s legs open by hooking a hand under each knee. The head of his cock kept rubbing that spot deep inside just right, over and over. Lance sobbed through another ecstatic crescendo, muscles trembling with the effort of keeping his legs from just collapsing sideways.  
  
Moments after that, Shiro said “fuck” and abruptly pulled out, splattering Lance’s tummy and thighs with cum. He collapsed on top of Lance, heedless of what the combination of bodily juices and food might do to his suit. When he spoke again, his voice was right next to Lance’s ear.  
  
“So how was your day?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“My mother played piano and cello, and sang.” Shiro closed his eyes and leaned back against the warm body of the omega supporting his weight in the tub. “Lyric mezzo. She had a lovely voice.”   
  
After that memorable welcome home, Shiro and Lance had scarfed down sandwiches made from the ingredients on the cheese and charcuterie board, and then taken the chilled wine with them when they’d repaired to the bathroom for a long soak. As they relaxed amid the steamy bubbles, Lance had asked him about the charitable foundation Shiro had started in his mother’s name. It seemed the manager, Garrett, had mentioned it to him and it made an impression.  
  
“So she was a musician?” Lance reached over Shiro’s shoulders to soap down his chest with a loofah.  
  
“Yes.” To Shiro’s mind, she was just as much a musician as any artist who chose to perform in public. “She never liked being on stage, though.” She had loved getting lost in the music, but she had been uncomfortable with the attention of strangers. In another life she might have become a composer instead of a music teacher.  
  
“How did your parents meet?” There was something wistful in Lance’s tone. “Was it romantic?”  
  
“I imagine it must have seemed so,” Shiro allowed. “She was an associate student at a conservatoire, participating in a group recital. He was in the audience at that recital.” Ryu’s cousin Shinji had also been performing, for an examination grade.  
  
For Shiro’s mother Lisa it had been an unofficial audition, to prove to the faculty that she had conquered her debilitating stage fright well enough to continue on as a degree-seeking student. The orphaned omega had been admitted on a provisional basis due to a combination of raw talent and the fact that her late father had been a lauded instructor there. To hear Shinji tell it, she’d managed to get through her cello performance with the chamber orchestra with no incidents, and she’d handled her piano duet with a violinist brilliantly. It wasn’t until midway through her vocal solo that disaster struck.   
  
“She lost her voice right in the middle of “Nymphs and Shepherds” and ran out of the auditorium in tears. My father followed her.” Shinji had been her accompanist. He had already completed his graded performances and hadn’t had anything riding on Lisa’s solo, but Ryu hadn’t known that when he’d gone charging out into the gloaming to bring her back.   
  
Lance’s arms reached around Shiro’s chest to clasp over his sternum, his long legs loosely circling his waist. “He comforted her?”  
  
“He tried.” It had really been his only persuasive option, since he knew very little English and she spoke no Japanese at the time. “How about you? Did your parents meet under a fated star?”  
  
Lance chuckled, his chest vibrating against Shiro’s back. “I guess so. He used to escort her home from work at night. At least, that’s what I was told.”  
  
“That sounds chivalrous,” Shiro said diplomatically, lightly massaging one of the feet in his lap. Lance had lovely high arches, like a dancer.  
  
“Sure, I suppose. See, he wasn’t supposed to be escorting her anywhere.” Lance leaned his cheek on top of Shiro’s head. “He was just supposed to let her in and out of the gate. But it was a long walk, and she worked long hours.”  
  
“Then he must have loved her, to see to her comfort like that in defiance of the rules.”  
  
Shiro really wasn’t sure what possessed him to say that. He didn’t know enough about Lance’s history to even begin to guess if that would be a welcomed comment, but it must have been because Lance gave him a gentle squeeze and said, “You know what? I like to think he did.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Stop fidgeting.” Shiro took Lance by the hand to curtail him plucking at his throat as he led him away from the limousine across the freshly mown grass. “The tie you gave me last night was tighter and you managed to resist fidgeting with that.”  
  
“Sorry.” Lance leaned into Shiro’s scent. The resiny notes had grown stronger the closer they got to the club, a familiar touch point in a strange environment. “I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”   
  
This place felt far less intimate than the restaurant. More exposed. Up ahead, large colorful parasols dotted the perimeter of the pitch like some kind of upmarket music festival.  
  
“Well you look outstanding.”  
  
As a male, Lance was expected to sport the three piece semi-formal ensemble considered acceptable daywear for a charity polo match at a club frequented by the well-heeled. As an omega, some traditional requirements were relaxed for him. For instance, he was not required to adhere to the neckwear rule, although he had opted to wear a looser cravat dyed the same shade as the ribbon on his Homburg hat. He was also, in the name of fashion, allowed to deviate from the strict neutral color scheme and straight-hem, subtle-break tailoring most of the men had opted for on their trousers.  
  
Lance had chosen a palette of rich shades of brown. He had no interest in being a peacock among the foxes, but neither did he want to downplay his dynamic by blending in with the alphas and beta males in grey and black. His trousers had a much closer cut than the rule book allowed for an alpha or beta male, hugging the ankles of his boots more tightly than would have been considered proper for them. Shiro sure seemed to like it, though.  
  
“You look mighty swell yourself,” Lance replied to his compliment.  
  
Shiro looked downright mouth-watering, and he surely knew it. He was wearing a modern take on the morning suit, with a slimmer cut, though not as close to the leg as Lance’s. The uniform dove grey elongated his already long form, making him look cool and elegant. He carried his grey wool derby hat in his hands, and if he managed to find a way to leave it with Kai at some point in the day Lance wouldn’t be surprised. Personally he thought Shiro made that hat look more suave than it had any right to, but Shiro was visibly uncomfortable with it on. The best accessory he was wearing, though, was the silk tie Lance had purchased and worn for him the previous day, and Lance totally wasn’t biased. It looked great on him and matched the suit too.  
  
Now came the part that was making Lance nervous. It had not been difficult to pass as belonging to Shiro’s social set among his professional adversaries, but these people were supposed to be his friends. Furthermore, Shiro was the sort Lance predicted would gravitate toward a more extroverted colleague and stick close to their side for the duration of the event. Then he would either try to include Lance in conversations where he risked revealing his true nature, or leave him to fend for himself amongst other omegas who would politely grill him for information they could use in their own pursuit of Shiro as a marriageable alpha (which Lance was supposed to be preventing, he hadn’t forgotten that part of his job).  
  
Sure enough, Shiro strode across the green toward a tall man with long blond hair flowing from underneath a top hat, who turned to greet Shiro with an air of familiarity.  
  
“Bucking protocol a bit, aren’t you old sport?” Shiro asked.  
  
Under his cutaway coat, the blond man wore a grey waistcoat over a black shirt with a black and grey striped tie that matched his pinstriped trousers too exactly to be anything but a custom job. According to what Graysen and Coran both told Lance, the shirt was traditionally supposed to be lighter than the waistcoat regardless of whether the wearer chose separates or a suit. As for that tie, it appeared as if the blond man wanted people to be thinking about his dick every time they looked at him.  
  
“This isn’t the bloody Royal Ascot, I’ll wear what I want,” the blond man replied in a plummy accent. “If there’s a paparazzo in this herd I’ll eat my hat.” He peered around Shiro’s broad shoulder with a curious light in his ice blue eyes. “Is this the mysterious omega you’ve been hiding?”  
  
Lance wondered what sort of gossip was being circulated about him, that this man already knew Shiro had an omega staying with him.  
  
“Lotor, I want you to meet my friend Lance McClain.” Shiro placed a steadying hand on Lance’s lower back. “Lance, this is Lotor Manigford, an old school chum of mine and currently my lawyer.”  
  
“I’m always pleased to make the acquaintance of a lovely omega who bears my initials.”  
  
Lance caught the sharp scent of Lavandin coming off the alpha under a miasma of expensive cologne that smelled sweetly of English Lavender.  
  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”  
  
Lance held out his hands to clasp only to find them raised to Lotor’s lips. It raised his hackles and he tried not to show it. Lance had met alphas like Lotor before, rich tourists back in Varadero who thought Lance was part of the turndown service.   
  
Well, now he potentially was, but this horny goat shouldn’t know that.  
  
“Yes, it’s always lovely to meet one of Shiro’s Plus Ones.” A woman in a periwinkle wrap dress strolled up, shiny black hair and steel blue eyes peeking out from under the wide brim of a floppy hat covered in silk roses. “He does have such exquisite taste.”  
  
“I do believe he’s outdone himself this time.” Lotor reached out a hand behind him for the woman; she accepted it and allowed herself to be drawn into the tableau. “Lance, this is my lovely wife Acxa. Say hello Acxa darling, be nice.”  
  
“Hello.” Acxa had a folding fan in her free hand, which she used to smack her husband lightly on the shoulder. “I’m always nice.”  
  
Up close, Lance could smell the hot tea scent of her real pheromones under the honey jasmine scent of her perfume. She was a beta, and not a very happy one at present. Lance must not be the first person Lotor had tried to put the moves on right under her nose.  
  
“Lotor my love, won’t you come and join me for a mimosa?” Acxa’s accent was Mid-Atlantic, the kind movie stars adopted during the studio era. Lance wondered what her real voice sounded like.  
  
“Of course dearest.” Lotor took Acxa’s arm in his. “Excuse us.”  
  
“Of course.” Shiro turned to Lance as soon as they were out of earshot. “Did you want a mimosa?”  
  
Not nearly as badly as Acxa had wanted Lance out of groping distance of her hubby, and honestly Lance felt the same. “Nope. I’m good. So those are your friends, huh?”  
  
“We spend a good deal of time in one another’s company.”  
  
“They’ve got your back?” Maybe Lance had misread that whole thing and they were just trying to protect their friend from this strange omega who seemed to have shown up out of nowhere.  
  
Shiro frowned. “I don’t need anyone to have my back.”  
  
Lance’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. Did Shiro not understand what having a friend meant? “Everybody needs somebody to be there.”  
  
“Everyone needs an ally at some point in their lives.” Shiro looked out at the groundskeepers checking the turf one last time to make sure it was ready for the first chukker. “An associate for accomplishing goals, or a companion for conversation,” he glanced at Lance, “and other diversions. But for protection? Adults shouldn’t need it.”  
  
“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t bother bringing an omega with you to events like this.”   
  
The words were out before Lance could stop them. Mamá always used to tell him his forwardness would get him into trouble someday, even before he presented as the secondary gender with historically the least legal rights.  
  
Shiro turned a flat look on Lance. “Going alone can be construed as weakness.”  
  
There was a contradiction there, right in front of Shiro’s face. Incredibly, he just wasn’t seeing it.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“The security here is crap,” Rolo said in disbelief. They had walked right out of the tree line and into a party full of rich people.  
  
“I doubt they’re expecting anyone but the tea and crumpets crowd to care about golf on horses.”   
  
Nyma took a good look at the expensive threads on the other party-goers. As easily as they’d gotten in, she knew it was only a matter of time before their presence was noticed. She could have wished she’d known before traipsing through the forest in sandals that all of the women were going to be wearing giant hats. She also couldn’t help but feel it was ironic that the shirt Rolo was wearing was named after the sport all of these bizarrely costumed people were here to see.  
  
Maybe they could try to pass Rolo off as one of the players.  
  
“Let’s just find Lance and get out of here,” he said.  
  
Nyma was all for that, but first...  
  
“We gotta get squared up with his john. Then we can leave.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Lance, meet the Delfín sisters, Luxia and Florona.”   
  
Shiro had just ordered Lance a Bellini when they were joined under the open bar tent by two of the prettiest women Lance had ever seen, aside from his own sisters.   
  
“Experts at the sport of love, the both of them.”  
  
“Shiro, do stop.” The elder of the two, a sleek ash-blonde alpha in black, smirked. “You’ll make me blush.”  
  
“I call them as I see them Luxia, but if I actually succeed at making you blush then I’ll call it a major life accomplishment.” Shiro’s eyes refocused on something over Lance’s left shoulder. “Speaking of seeing things however, I see Senator Sanda and I must speak with her. I beg your pardon ladies. And Lance.” He gave a little bow and off he went.  
  
“Such manners on him,” the younger sister Florona clucked. “He needs a lady’s touch, don’t you agree Luxia?”  
  
“Your desire to touch him doesn’t foretell a need, sweetie,” Luxia replied evenly, attention focused on the margarita she’d just acquired.  
  
“I asked for your agreement, not your opinion.” The red-haired beta turned her back with a flounce of sunny yellow skirts to order a sea breeze from the bartender.  
  
“Semantics,” Luxia said to her daisy-bedecked hat, before shrugging and turning to Lance. “You’ll have to forgive her, dear. Shiro is on the bucket list of nearly every unmarried person here, and even a few of the married ones. They all want a spot on his dance card before he closes it for good.”  
  
So they just wanted to get into Shiro’s silk drawers? Well, Lance could hardly blame them for that. It would be a crying shame if Shiro ever went celibate, that man’s talent in the bedroom deserved to be appreciated.  
  
“They shouldn’t worry, I’d never deprive the universe of such a heavenly body.” Lance sipped his Bellini into the stunned silence. “Besides, I only want to dance with him in the sheets.”  
  
Florona’s narrow shoulders stiffened while Luxia laughed, long, low and delighted.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _“Everyone onto the pitch, it’s time to stomp the divots!”_  
  
Such a vulgar word, stomp. One should tread in the divots. That sounded so much more civilized. Any minute now the announcer would deliver a grotesque reminder warning the divot stompers not to stray into shit kicking.  
  
 _“Beware of the steaming divot!”_  
  
There it was. Lotor sipped his Bramble and scanned the pitch, looking for a cap of silver hair, and possibly a pair of cervine legs if Shiro hadn’t yet ditched him for more sophisticated company.  
  
There they were, faces close together as they conversed while turning over divots. The omega did not appear to be fractious, and Shiro did not look put upon at all. This was most unusual, as Shiro usually drove his dates crackers, and they in turn drove him to distraction by this point in each other’s acquaintanceship. A distracted Shiro was always easier to influence, and his aggrieved paramours were often good for a bounce on the mattress after the inevitable fall.   
  
It was so easy to line up the prospects, too, as Shiro had a reputation for being terrific in the sack and terrible out of it. There was always some idealistic young fool who found this more of a challenge than a deterrent and was willing to allow Lotor to arrange the introduction. They were also quite amenable to his offer of a shoulder to cry on when all was said and done.  
  
Except for that last one. What an intransigent creature he was.  
  
As Lotor watched, Shiro curled an arm around the omega’s trim waist and swung him up off of his feet. The omega clutched Shiro’s shoulders and laughed, head back and mouth open, completely unconcerned that someone might be looking at him.  
  
“He’s a darling little thing, isn’t he?” Acxa turned up at his elbow with a fresh drink for each of them. “Where do you suppose Shiro found this one?”  
  
“That is a question.” Usually Lotor could peg an omega’s pedigree within moments of meeting them, but nothing about this omega’s name or appearance was familiar in the slightest, nor his manners aside from that he had some. His gaze drifted to the other side of the pitch and that was when he noticed that he was not the only person avidly watching Shiro with his newest acquisition.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Allow me to tend to your shoes, milady.”  
  
Nyma was startled from her surveillance by the smooth, cultured voice of an alpha who had somehow gotten past her guard. Speaking of whom: Rolo gave out a low growl of warning that would have been more impressive if it had come before Tall, Blonde and Unctuous slithered into her space, instead of after.  
  
“Do not be alarmed.” Blondie McGee puffed out an herbal whiff of apology and raised his hands. Sunlight winked off his wedding band. “I only offer as a member of the club. The last thing we want is for spectators and potential members such as yourselves to leave a polo match with the strongest impression being left on your footwear.”  
  
Nyma knew better than to instantly trust a man who dressed to call attention to his penis. “Thanks, but I’m just trying to catch up with a friend.”  
  
“Would that friend happen to be Lance McClain?”  
  
Wait, what?  
  
“If you give me the message, I can see that it is delivered to him.” Blondie folded his hands over his own chest like an anime villain. “On my honor.”  
  
Nyma wasn’t too sure about this dude’s honor. For all she knew, he might be a cop. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t potentially useful.  
  
“Yeah, you can give him a message.”   
  
Nyma lifted her chin and put her hand on her hip. Act powerful, and people usually went along. She felt Rolo step close behind her, backing her up.   
  
“You can remind Lance and Casanova over there that they haven’t paid Nyma and Rolo for the matchmaker’s fee, and if they’re even thinking about trying to cut us out, words are gonna be had, and they’re gonna be bad words.”   
  
There. That was just vague enough not to get her ass carted in for soliciting prostitution if Blondie really was of the upright persuasion, but specific enough that Lance would get the intended message and know he’d better act on it.  
  
“Really?” Blondie looked positively gleeful. “How scandalous!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro had come back to spend a few golden moments showing Lance how to stomp divots of turf back into place so that the field would be less dangerous for the horses to thunder across in the second half of the match. Who would’ve thought reinstalling sod with expensive shoes could be fun? Then Shiro had taken off again to confab with that tall, severe-looking lady in the grey coatdress, Senator somebody too important to small talk with unimportant consorts. Lance had been okay standing behind the field markers at the edge of the pitch, but now the game had ended and the crowd was starting to drift. He looked around for a tent to shelter under. Walking alone while omega was a good way to get propositioned by strangers, and he wasn’t trolling.  
  
“Lance?”  
  
Lance turned at the sound of his name and found none other than James Jeffrey Griffin walking up to him, carrying a grey and orange polo helmet under his arm. He was kitted out in a grey polo shirt, white jodhpurs, and black boots with knee guards, and smiling as if he was genuinely glad to see Lance.  
  
“Mister Griffin!” Lance found himself returning that smile. “I had no idea you were playing today.” Honestly, he'd been paying more attention to the horses than the players.  
  
“Please, call me James.” He offered his hands for Lance to clasp, one of them disarmingly awkward due to the helmet balanced in the crook of his elbow. “I’m Number Three with the Hidalgos. Would you like to meet my string of ponies?”  
  
“Oh, would I!”   
  
Lance hadn’t seen horses up close for years. His brother Marco had worked as a guide for an outfitter that led tourists through the remnants of a long-abandoned plantation, and he would sometimes let Lance come with him to pet the horses in exchange for help mucking stalls.  
  
As James led him to where the tack trunks and horse trailers were parked, Lance wondered if Marco still worked there or if he’d somehow moved on, too.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“A marriage broker, Shiro?” No sooner was Sanda out of earshot than Lotor was sliding into the spot she’d just vacated. “Has it really come to that?”  
  
“I beg your pardon.” Shiro had no time or inclination to entertain Lotor’s flights of fancy.   
  
At some point during Sanda’s impassioned speech about the righteousness of organized actions, Lance had disappeared. One minute he was solidly in Shiro’s peripheral vision, the next minute he was gone. He felt sweat slide down the center of his back as he searched the press of well-dressed people for just one slim figure in brown.  
  
“If you’re wondering where your mail order bride ran off to, I saw James Griffin chatting him up, hey where are you going?”  
  
Shiro felt a growl threatening to rumble out of his diaphragm as he stalked off to where he knew Griffin’s team had their vehicles parked.  
  
“I am going to retrieve my omega.”  
  
There was a little practical voice in Shiro’s paleomammalian brain advising him that something Lotor had just said required further interrogation, but his reptile brain was overriding it with an urgent drumbeat of _find omega now_.  
  
He found the omega right where Lotor had insinuated he would be: contentedly stroking the nose of a bay stallion while James Griffin stood over him too close, too close, _too close_. He was on the verge of letting rip a bellow of challenge when they both looked up, possibly alerted by his agitated scent. James’s lip curled, Lance looked frightened. Even the horse tossed his head.  
  
Well, that was fine with Shiro. After scaring the shit out of him, and now this, Lance could do with a little taste of what he’d dealt.  
  
“Lance, we are leaving. Now.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Thunderous silence reined in the limousine, its acoustical dampeners filtering out noise from outside of the vehicle and its occupants taking care of the rest.  
  
Lance had never smelled that astringently sharp scent on Shiro before. He had left the pitch with Shiro over James’s objections, after having to reassure James so as to avoid a bigger scene than they were already making, which only seemed to piss Shiro off even more. On top of all of that, Lotor had trailed them all the way back to where Kai and the limo were waiting, just to deliver the real capper to this whole affair.  
  
Shiro pressed a button on his armrest which raised the barrier between the rear compartment and the driver’s seat.  
  
“Who the fuck,” he asked slowly, “are Nyma and Rolo?”  
  
Lance drummed his fingers nervously on his own armrest. “They’re wanna-be pimps.”  
  
“I have been operating under the belief that you did not have a pimp.” Shiro turned burning eyes on Lance. “I thought my deal with you was exclusively with you.”  
  
“I don’t have a pimp!” Lance’s chest felt too tight. “I said they want to be my pimps, they... they’re tying to co-opt me, they’ve been chasing after me and Keith for weeks.”  
  
“Keith?” Shiro’s tone was accusatory.  
  
“My roommate.” Lance leaned forward in the seat, his face in his hands. “They staked out our apartment trying to smoke him out, I guess they got tired of waiting for him and decided to come after me.”  
  
“I do not appreciate having pimps using my lawyer as a go-between to ferry messages to you.”  
  
“You think I appreciate it?” Lance could not fucking believe what he was hearing. “You think I want them coming after me trying to force me to work for them?”  
  
“I don’t know what to think!” Shiro threw up his hands. “Pimps are chasing you, then you disappear and cozy up to James Griffin of all people!”  
  
“You disappeared first, and he was just being kind to me!”  
  
“Maybe you want to take up with him, then, if he’s so attentive.” Shiro’s voice was low and dangerous.  
  
“I’m not taking on clients right now because I’m working for you! Remember?”  
  
“What if I decide I want you to seduce James Griffin?”   
  
Unfuckingbelievable. “We didn’t negotiate for that! I decide who and when!”  
  
“If negotiations were truly an important factor in what happens to you, then you wouldn’t have a wanna-be pimp problem right now.”  
  
The tightness in Lance’s chest squeezed like stellar mass. “Are you seriously blaming me for their decision to harass me?”  
  
“You are the one in the position of weakness.”  
  
Lance choked out a laugh. “Guess you’d know all about that then, since that’s what you do, right? You buy companies out from under people who don’t want to sell them, because they’re in a position of weakness and can’t fight you off.”  
  
Shiro mashed the button lowering the barrier. “Kai, stop the car.”  
  
The limo coasted to the curb next to a neighborhood full of gently sloping hills and McMansions.  
  
“Get out.”  
  
The asshole hadn’t even paid him everything he was owed and most of his stuff was still in the hotel room, but if Lance had to spend another moment in the airless environment of that car he’d vomit on the seats. He was barely clear of the door when the limo rolled smoothly away from the curb and disappeared over a hill.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro’s breath was still quick in his throat as the limo pulled up to a four way stop. His nerves felt ready to snap like overstretched piano wire. No omega had ever dared to say anything like that to him, ever. Not even Adam, who was outspoken by nature. Not even his own mother, when she’d become concerned he’d turn out as emotionally remote as his father and tried to pull him back from that brink. Shiro felt cloth in his clenching hands, looked down and realized he was crushing Lance’s hat.  
  
The limo had come to a full stop and had not moved for a good thirty seconds. The barrier was still down, and when Shiro looked into the rear view mirror, he found Kai’s brown eyes looking steadily back at him.   
  
“You think I did the wrong thing?”   
  
It came out with the rumble of challenge he’d wanted to aim at Griffin. Kai remained placid in the face of his misplaced temper.  
  
“If you paid him fairly for his services then he has no cause for grievance.”  
  
If he... God damn it.  
  
“Kai, turn the car around.”  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
This was not Shiro changing his mind about Lance’s behavior. This was just him making sure he was paid appropriately for services rendered. Shiro was always fair about paying people the going rate for whatever he purchased, damn it.  
  
The limo cruised back in the direction where Lance had disembarked. Shiro searched the sides of the road, thinking that surely they would come upon him walking before they reached the point where Shiro had last seen him, but there was no sign of a smartly-dressed and unusually pretty male omega anywhere. A knot began to form in his stomach.  
  
They cleared the last hill. Where Lance had disappeared in the rear view mirror now stood a camper truck. Shiro’s gut sent a wave of discomfort radiating towards his heart.  
  
“Kai pull over here.”  
  
Shiro was out of the vehicle before it had rolled to a complete stop. He stepped off the curb onto the grass, rounding the side of the camper truck and saw another alpha standing on the grass gazing down into the riparian buffer around the nearby subdivision. He was younger, with shaggy hair and beard stubble that looked more like the result of lack of barbering opportunities than artful dishevelment.  
  
He looked up when Shiro got within scenting distance. “Hey, you’re Lance’s last job, right? Don’t worry, my girl’s gonna fetch him back up here, but it’s gonna cost you if you want him back– ”  
  
He didn’t get to finish his sentence because his face was too busy being a landing pad for Shiro’s fist.   
  
“What the fuck, man?” The other alpha ( _probably Rolo_ , said the paleomammalian voice reasonably) now wore a veil of blood pouring from his nose. “I was trying to do you a solid as Lance’s pimp!”  
  
“Lance does not have,” **punch** , “want,” **punch** , “or need a pimp!”   
  
Shiro wound up shouting that last part at Rolo’s unconscious form on the ground, and the adrenaline surge that had been coursing through his veins ever since first realizing Lance was alone somewhere with another alpha abruptly ceased.  
  
A rustling noise drew Shiro’s attention down the slope of green. Lance stumbled out of the tree line, his waistcoat torn open and his cravat missing. Shiro staggered down the hill toward him. As he drew near, he smelled the distress on him, almost sickly sweet.  
  
“Lance.” Shiro reached him and held him up by the shoulders.  
  
“I punched her.” Lance’s eyes were glassy like a doll’s. “I didn’t want to but she wouldn’t stop.”  
  
Shiro’s second wind arrived in a fresh burst of determined energy. He picked Lance up in his arms, carried him up the hill and placed him into the back of the limo.  
  
“Watch him,” he said to Kai, who nodded.  
  
Shiro strode back down the hill and into the woods. A wall of green rose around him, the smell of water heralding the presence of the stream this copse had been left to protect. Shiro didn’t have to hike that far, though. A woman in a ruffled dress lurched out of the dimness, eyes narrowing when she caught sight of Shiro.  
  
“You.” She tried to point at him, but her aim was off. “You owe me money, and if your twin goes he has to pay too.”  
  
She was still going to try to extort him even though she no longer had any leverage to speak of. That was brazen to the point of insanity. She couldn’t even stand up properly.  
  
Shiro hiked her over his shoulder and toted her up the hill.  
  
“Hey! Twin face! I’m talking to you!”  
  
“I’m going to explain a few home truths to you, and you are going to listen.” He plopped her down on the ground next to her boyfriend, who by the groaning was starting to come around. “You might view what you’re doing as some sort of Bonnie and Clyde by way of Hollywood adventure in fun and profit, but what you are actually doing is attempting to engage in an extremely illegal activity known as human trafficking.”  
  
“Your boyfriend’s a hooker.” Nyma waved her finger in a meandering attempt at a wag. “You and him are hooking together!”  
  
“Yes but you see, that is a state misdemeanor in either of our cases.” Shiro had made sure to research that information the very first day. If he got caught, he wanted to know exactly what charges he needed to seek legal protection for. “You, on the other hand, would be facing federal felony charges. Besides that, I’m wealthy and very well-connected. Do you really want to keep pursuing this when I can ensure our charges don’t stick but yours do?”  
  
Nyma glared up at him defiantly. “I’m his pimp.”  
  
“He does not want you to be his pimp. That is why it’s a felony for you to keep trying to falsely imprison him.”  
  
He still wasn’t sure if Nyma had fully grasped the concept he was trying to impart, but judging by the way Rolo’s bloodshot eyes were starting to widen, he was reading the message loud and clear.  
  
“You’re her alpha?”  
  
Rolo nodded slowly, eyes narrowing again suspiciously.  
  
“Good. Make her listen.”  
  
Shiro left them there to sort themselves out and returned to the limo. Lance was huddled in the back, crammed against the window armrest. Shiro climbed in, shoved the console up out of his way, and pulled Lance to his chest.  
  
“Drive,” he said to Kai, who nodded and sailed forth as calmly as if they were leaving a Michelin-starred restaurant instead of a pair of bloodied would-be pimps in the dirt.  
  
Shiro looked down at the quiescent omega in his arms. Lance was looking back up at him, face streaked with dirt and tear tracks.  
  
“You hurt me,” he said baldly.  
  
It took Shiro’s breath away, that he could just say that without quailing in mortification. _You hurt me too_ , he thought, but he couldn’t find the strength to admit it aloud.   
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Lance just nodded and rested his head against Shiro’s breastbone again. “You told me I’d be safe with you.”  
  
“You are. I won’t leave you in danger again.”   
  
Shiro rested his chin on the soft hair of the omega who had no idea of the power he now wielded.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that intrigues me about Shance is the sense that they could go at each other hard, whether that's in a sexual encounter or an argument.


	5. Killer Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro pitches much woo. Lotor feels very inconvenienced by all of this romance messing with his libertine schedule. Narti is Done With It. Hunk is there when Keith needs him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this and leaving kudos and comments! Hyarou, choutarouootori, SpaceSquirrelQueen, flickster94087, blue wonderer, Adam29 and psychicScavenger, and everybody, thank you so much!!

Lance emerged from a long hot shower to the tantalizing smell of oregano, cheese and tomato sauce coming from somewhere nearby. He hurriedly wriggled into his joggers and t-shirt to go find out if it was dinner. He hadn’t had a proper meal since breakfast, and now his stomach was finally settled enough that he could eat. He’d been so relieved when Shiro had come back for him, experiencing a full-body rush of warmth at the sight of him all rumpled and manfully worried, but that didn’t mean Lance was ready to go out of his way to initiate naked time just yet.  
  
Shiro stood in front of the wall oven with his back to the suite when Lance walked in. He, too, had dressed down, in black athletic pants and a white t-shirt, both of which were doing marvelous things for his musculature. A bottle of Brunello stood open and breathing on the counter behind him, two tulip-shaped wine glasses resting next to it.  
  
“Go ahead and help yourself to a glass if you like,” Shiro said over his shoulder, “this will be out in just a minute.”  
  
Lance served himself a standard pour. “I didn’t know you cooked.” Shiro was the veritable renaissance man.   
  
“I know how to heat things up,” Shiro chuckled ruefully. “I wouldn’t necessarily call that cooking.” When he turned away from the oven gripping their dinner with pot holders, it was in the kind of foil pan that delicatessens used for ready-to-bake meals.   
  
They sat together at the huge dining room table and tucked into dishes of excellent eggplant parmigiana delivered from a gourmet grocer several blocks away from the hotel. They conducted the idlest of conversations between bites of food, directionless chatter about nothing of importance, and Lance could tell what Shiro was doing. He was trying to invite Lance to be comfortable in his company again, and it was rather courtly of him all things considered, but eventually the prattle wound around to a subject that wasn’t really lacking in direction. It had a definite point, even if Shiro didn’t realize it when he asked what brought him to L.A.  
  
“I was following a rumor.” Lance took a sip of the wine, which was dry and intensely fruit-forward.  
  
Shiro paused in lifting his own glass, seeming to sense he’d stumbled into a topic of unforeseen significance, but unable to stop himself from continuing down the line of inquiry. “A casting rumor?”  
  
“No.” Lance smiled and shook his head. “I didn’t come here to be in pictures. I came here looking for my father.”   
  
Instead of settling into Miami with the other balseros, he’d immediately started trying to track down the man he’d been told was his father. He’d eventually found a lead from a guy who’d known his father in the Navy, a nice guy who had even fronted him the cash to take a bus out to California without asking for anything in return.  
  
Shiro set his glass back on the table. “Did you find him?”  
  
“I found the notice of his death.” Lance took a longer drink of the wine. “Charles McClain. He was dead before I even left Cuba.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Shiro passed the bottle of wine over. “Do you have any other family here?”  
  
Lance accepted the bottle gratefully and poured himself a fresh one, smiling grimly because he had a notion of what Shiro really wanted to know. “Just a spinster aunt who wants nothing to do with me.” The mean old bat had run him out of her rooming house hollering about devil-eyed McClains.  
  
“Lance, if you’re the child of a U.S. citizen– ”  
  
“Then technically I’m not an illegal, yeah I know, but in order to prove it I’d have to be granted custody of my father’s remains, and in order to do that I need to prove I’m next of kin. It’s kind of a catch-22.” The old biddy aunt was not a blood relation and probably wouldn’t have helped him even if she was.  
  
“Surely there’s someone he knew who would be willing to help you.”  
  
Help him avoid prostitution as a means of making a living, was what Shiro was obliquely getting at. The Navy buddy, Darrell Stoker, had warned Lance at the bus station that he hadn’t heard from Charles for several years and told him to call if he hit a dead end. When he’d found that dead end, Lance had not wanted to talk about it, especially not to Stoker because then he’d have to explain just exactly what had happened to Charles, and Lance didn’t want to repay the man for his kindness by making him live with such knowledge. He’d started hustling odd jobs to support himself and thought he’d be fine without having to lean on the kindness of strangers. Those jobs became more and more tenuous and it wasn’t long before he’d committed taboo.  
  
“By the time I realized I needed the help, I felt like I couldn’t ask for it anymore.”  
  
“You deserve help, Lance.” Shiro’s eyes glimmered with something Lance hoped was empathy and not pity.  
  
“Well I did get help,” he admitted. “It just so happened that the help I got was from a sex worker.”  
  
Lance smiled again, impenitently this time as he remembered meeting Keith, sparking so bright with wild energy. No one at the Purple Imperial had less than passionate feelings about Keith. Love him or hate him, nobody could possibly overlook him and Keith never really cared which way it went so long as he wasn’t disregarded.  
  
“Oh?” Shiro took the wine bottle back and poured himself another glass. “How did that come about?”  
  
“I was a dancer at a strip club,” Lance began.  
  
Shiro gulped wine.  
  
“You meet a lot of people who moonlight when you work at a strip club. Keith worked there too, and he was one of those people. We had this act where we’d be rival biker babes, and we’d rip each other’s clothes off while pretending to fight.” Ah, the magic of Velcro.  
  
Shiro coughed and switched to water.  
  
“But then the club got shut down. Keith told me how he was making all this money on the side and he thought I’d be good at it. So, I went out on the boulevard with him one night. I wasn’t really thinking I’d pick up a client that first night. Thought I’d just watch Keith do his thing and there would be time to back out. But I got one.” He winced at the memory.  
  
“Bad?” Shiro’s scent and posture went on high alert.  
  
“Not exactly.” The guy hadn’t been violent or even especially mean-spirited. “Just... some guys think of you as more of a product than a service provider. He was one of those.” Lance had gotten used to those clients, but getting one on the first try had left a mark. That had been the first and last client he’d ever tried to warn not to bite him. The dismissive way that alpha had reacted... “Sometimes the guys who have a fresh mouth are easier to take because they’re at least treating you like a person.”  
  
“You are a person.”  
  
Shiro’s expression was earnest, in that Byronic hero way he had about him. Lance knew that in spite of the shit that had happened earlier that day and the harsh words that had passed between them, he meant what he was saying now.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith woke to a tapping sound on the window. Probably just Malocoti from downstairs coming up the fire escape to wheedle some of Lance’s special condoms. She could come back later. Lance made a nice body pillow, but having the bed all to himself all week was an unexpected luxury and Keith didn’t intend to waste it. He snuggled down under the comforter he’d had since high school, already drifting back into the arms of Morpheus, who smelled like coconuts for some reason.  
  
_Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap._  
  
Keith flung off his sleep mask and erupted from the bed. “If you don’t carry your redheaded ass back down to the ground I’m gonna– ”  
  
It wasn’t Malocoti. Keith stood frozen with a neck pillow ready to throw at the window where Hunk looked in, face glowing like a sky lantern. He looked comfortably rugged in cargo pants and a pullover, with a messenger bag over his shoulder and a paper bag in his free hand.  
  
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said when Keith opened the window.  
  
“I’m a night shift worker,” Keith reminded him.  
  
“I know, and I’m sorry for waking you, but this kind of can’t wait.” Hunk raised up the paper bag. “I also brought breakfast?”  
  
Minutes later, Hunk was parceling out warm pain au chocolat and large to-go cups of fragrant French Roast, and Keith had to admit there were worse ways to be rousted out of bed. Akane used to stand over his bed clapping hyōshigi to get him up on school days. But just because this was nice didn’t mean he was gonna change out of his sleep shirt and house socks into something less comfortable. His unexpected guest would just have to deal with knitted cat faces glaring up and out at him for the duration of his visit.  
  
“What was so important that it couldn’t hold ‘til lunch?” Keith closed his eyes as he bit into his pastry, the better to hide the fact that his eyes were rolling back in pleasure.  
  
“Nyma and Rolo tried to snatch Lance in broad daylight yesterday.”  
  
Keith’s eyes popped open. “He’s okay though, right?” He didn’t think Hunk would have related the news that calmly if Lance wasn’t okay.  
  
Keith had put the word out on the street about what was really going on with Nyma and Rolo. Must have pissed Nyma off something fierce to have her pose exposed, but she hadn’t come for Keith like he’d wanted her to. She’d gone after Lance instead, probably under the mistaken assumption he was sweeter-tempered. He was more sociable, which wasn’t really the same thing.  
  
“He’s alright.” Hunk opened up the to-go cups of cream and sugar to doctor his coffee. “Shiro went a little nuts on the guy and threatened them both with legal action.”  
  
“Nyma’s gonna wish she was in jail aft– ”  
  
“Keith, please don’t go after them.” Hunk’s affable face went all alpha-serious. “Shiro can defend himself from legal repercussions for his actions, he’s got plenty of money and lots of friends in high places. You don’t have the leverage he has in this situation.”  
  
“I can make my own leverage,” he promised darkly.  
  
“Lance said Shiro made a hell of an impression on Rolo,” Hunk frowned. “He’s probably not going to try for either of you again.”  
  
Maybe not, but Rolo wasn’t the one whose master plan had been thwarted and whose ego had therefore just suffered a grave insult.   
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Thank you gentlemen, that will be all.”   
  
Shiro convened the meeting and began gathering up his research materials as the investors rambled out the door, chairs scraping the bamboo floor and voices murmuring low as they retreated into the carpeted hallway.  
  
“I still don’t see why it was necessary to go over these particular financials again,” Lotor said sotto voce from his seat next to Shiro’s. He hadn’t been thrilled when Shiro had called for this meeting to take place in the co-working facility’s conference room instead of the one adjacent to his own office in the Manigford building.  
  
“I just wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.” Shiro checked the time and weather on his phone. “It wouldn’t do to sell the cow if milk is going to become a luxury good within a few short months.”  
  
“Why not?” Lotor followed Shiro to the door. “We’ve got the cow, and the milk could sour.”  
  
Shiro stopped in the doorway to look into Lotor’s pinched face. “We’re talking about a potentially much larger payday just by exercising patience.”  
  
“We have a large payday right here and now, no waiting.” Lotor dropped his bunched shoulders, rolling them in a visible effort to relax. “Come over for dinner tonight. Our chef is making beef bourguignon.”  
  
“Can’t.” Shiro couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “I’ve got a date.”  
  
“Isn’t the point of using a marriage broker so that you don’t have to waste time on dates?”  
  
Lotor had been picking at him all day about this and it was grating on Shiro’s nerves, but permitting the fiction that Lance was a mail order bride to continue was honestly safer than risking Lotor discovering the truth, so he would just have to bite his tongue.  
  
“It’s not a waste of my time if I want to go on the date.”  
  
Shiro swept out of the conference room, soul lit with anticipation.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance checked his reflection in the bathroom mirror one last time. Shiro was probably getting impatient out there, but he kept feeling like he might have missed an important detail. This outfit set a new bar for the nicest thing Lance had ever worn, and it wasn’t one of the ones Lance had shopped for two days prior. Shiro had somehow shopped for this and had it spirited into the hotel, and Lance had a pretty good idea Coran had helped him out with that. The silk pocket square had come from his department store.  
  
Lance was wearing a tuxedo, the first time he’d ever worn one if you didn’t count the movie usher uniform, which Lance didn’t. Pipo had made him a magnificent linen guayabera rippling with alforza to wear to formal occasions back home, but he had not been able to take that garment with him when he’d left and hadn’t encountered a need for formal wear after.  
  
Traditional tuxedo design for male omegas bore a lingering remnant of Rococo high fashion: an ornately decorated waistcoat with full chest coverage. Many modern male omegas wore it with a cadet-collar shirt or no shirt at all, since there was no need for them to wear a bow tie and the jacket covered everything that the waistcoat didn’t. The waistcoat Shiro had picked out for Lance was deep blue silk, embroidered with thickets of white and red lilies in satin floss. It made a subtle contrast to the tuxedo jacket and trousers, in midnight blue so dark it looked black until the light hit it just so.  
  
_“Lance? Could you give me a hand?”_  
  
Lance finally stepped out of the bathroom and stopped short at the sight of Shiro resplendent in a slim fit black tux. There was no way that tuxedo wasn’t made to measure, skimming the lines of his body as perfectly it did. Those notched lapels were like arrows pointing out how broad and strong his shoulders were. His bow tie hung loose around the winged collar points of his shirt.  
  
“I keep tying it too long and it just hangs there,” Shiro said sheepishly.  
  
“I’ve got you.” Lance leaned into his space and tied a neat butterfly around his neck. “There. You look amazing.” He let his hands linger on Shiro’s chest, breathing in his scent.  
  
“Thanks.” Shiro took Lance’s hands in his. “You do too. There’s just one thing missing, though.”  
  
“I knew it!”  
  
“Hang on.” Shiro went to the suite’s safe and took out a robin’s egg blue box with a familiar logo on it. He brought it over and handed Lance a small key with a tassel on it. “Open it.”  
  
Lance opened the Tiffany’s box. Resting inside on creamy velvet was a filigreed festoon choker in warm yellow gold. It was a common piece of jewelry to give omegas for courting gifts and bridal gifts, because the filigree design called attention to the primary scent glands in a flattering way without blocking them, whether they were bitten or intact. An especially high quality necklace such as this was the sort of jewelry that omegas would pass down through families as an heirloom. This one had small rubies set in the swags, and a large sapphire drop that would dangle in the hollow of the wearer’s throat.  
  
Lance touched the edge of the box reverently. “How?” He wasn’t even sure exactly what he was asking.  
  
“It’s on loan at the moment,” Shiro replied, because of course it was.   
  
Shiro had been quite generous with Lance, but there was no reason for him to present a courting gift. Their relationship was not defined by romance. They’d barely even made up from their fight.   
  
“Here, let me help you put it on.”  
  
Lance closed his eyes as he felt the delicate metal come to rest against his skin. He didn’t know why his chest suddenly felt so laden. The necklace was as light as water, the rubies weighing no more than pebbles. Only the sapphire was in any way heavy.  
  
“There.” Shiro’s warm fingers finished closing the clasp. “Let’s see you.”  
  
Lance turned in his arms. Shiro’s eyes were as warm as his hands. “You’re beautiful.”  
  
His words were like a shaft of sunlight restoring some of Lance’s good mood. “Thank you.” He knew what he was getting into from the start, no point getting morose about it. “Where are we going?”  
  
“It’s a surprise.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
They turned heads as they crossed the lobby. Shiro had known they would as soon as Lance had come out in the formal wear Shiro had taken such pleasure in endowing upon him. What a stunner he was, and clearly unaware of the full measure of the effect he had on others. Garrett marked their exit with a curious expression on his face. Shiro knew he and Lance had been enjoying coffee and chitchat together when he was at work, but his alpha did not bristle at the attention the way it had when Griffin had taken an interest.  
  
Maybe he could enlist Garrett’s help for what he had in mind for Lance. But that was for later. For now, he would be the one enjoying Lance’s company as they took a limo ride to Santa Monica. Shiro had the console stocked with manzanilla and relished Lance’s reaction when he saw the aperitif hidden in such an innocuous place. All of these little luxuries which had faded into the background of Shiro’s daily life were brand new again as seen through Lance’s eyes.  
  
Those wide blue eyes widened even further when he saw where the limo was going.   
  
“Shiro, I don’t have a passport or any legal form of ID!”  
  
“You won’t need any.” Shiro hoped that at some point he would, but he ‘d figure out a solution to that problem if and when it became relevant. In this moment it was completely unnecessary. “We’re traveling by private charter and we’re not leaving the country.” They weren’t even leaving the state.  
  
The limo tooled up to the private hangar where their chartered jet awaited on the apron with the three person crew lined up next to the airstair. The cabin attendant stepped forward as soon as Kai brought the car to a complete stop, and opened the door for Shiro.  
  
“Good evening Mister Shirogane.” The beta was immaculately groomed in a dark grey suit. “My name is Ezra Sparks and on behalf of the crew I’d like to welcome you aboard your chartered flight to San Francisco. The refreshments you requested are aboard and ready to be served as soon as we reach altitude.”  
  
“Thank you Mister Sparks.”  
  
Shiro turned to assist Lance out of the limo. He could have stood aside and allowed Sparks to do it, but he wanted to hold Lance’s hands and pull him to his feet himself, and watch his face as he took in everything.  
  
He wasn’t disappointed. Lance’s jaw dropped at the sight of the mid-size jet waiting with its cockpit pointed toward the taxiway, and the smartly-dressed crew standing tall beside it.  
  
“This is like fucking Casablanca,” Lance said, then put one hand over his mouth when he heard the swear word leave it.  
  
“I believe some of the filming took place around here,” Shiro replied as he took Lance by his free hand to board the jet.  
  
Beautifully clear weather saw them take to the skies with no delays, and Sparks served the light meal right on time, beef tataki complemented by a crisp and zesty Sauvignon Blanc. Lance surprised Shiro by handling the chopsticks with a fair degree of proficiency.  
  
“My roommate,” Lance explained with a smile. “He makes ramen sometimes. Not the instant stuff. Thought he was gonna flip his lid the first time I tried to eat it with a fork, said he didn’t stand over a hot stove making broth just so I could leave it in the bowl.”  
  
The rest of the flight passed smoothly, with company so convivial that if there was any turbulence Shiro didn’t take any notice of it. They touched down with nightfall at San Francisco International Airport and were ushered into a chauffeured town car with bottles of lemon mineral water to revive them from jet lag.  
  
“Still not gonna tell me where we’re going?”  
  
“You’ll see.”  
  
When the town car pulled up to the curb in front of their destination, Shiro watched Lance’s face light up in radiance to rival the floodlights illuminating the colonnades of the War Memorial Opera House.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance may have never been to this opera house before but he knew an opera house when he was looking at one. He still felt a residual thrill remembering the time his class took a field trip to Gran Teatro de la Habana to see _Giselle_. A frisson of excitement tingled through Lance’s limbs.  
  
“We’re here to see the opera?”  
  
“Not the opera,” Shiro said teasingly, and refused to elaborate further.  
  
The lobby inside the Beaux-Arts building was a shining glory of marble and bronze, crowned by a vaulted, coffered ceiling from which glazed pendant lamps descended like bottled fireflies. Stairs led in various directions toward different seating sections. Shiro steered them to a table where a woman in a black pencil skirt and blazer awaited. He brought out his phone for the usher to scan his mobile tickets.  
  
“Thank you sir, here are your programs.” She handed over two booklets. “Enjoy the show!”  
  
Shiro took the booklets and guided Lance up the stairs toward the box tier.  
  
“How did you get box seats on such short notice?”  
  
“I’d love to be able to say I got them through some fancy negotiating, but the truth is I just got extraordinarily lucky.”  
  
They alighted a flight of stairs and cut past a small café filled with finely-dressed people chatting and noshing.  
  
“Are we late?”  
  
“No, but they will be if they don’t finish their meals within the next few minutes.”  
  
They strode through an upper floor lobby decorated in dark woods and deep red brocade and then Shiro turned to a closed panel door. “Here we are.” He opened the door and pushed aside a heavy velour curtain to reveal a half-open room with pale gold cornices and opera chairs upholstered in red velvet.  
  
Lance stepped farther into the theater box. It was like walking into a giant high-heeled shoe. The sides were open enough so that he could see their neighbors when he looked to the left and the right. An older woman in a feather fascinator and a red capelet nodded a friendly greeting to him so he nodded back. People were filing in to fill the seats below them as well. Ahead, Lance could see part of the orchestra pit and the tasseled gold grand drape downstage. Shiro had reserved a side box, but the vantage point was still excellent. They would be able to see most of the stage when the curtain rose.  
  
“You can go ahead and have a seat, you know.”  
  
Lance looked behind him. Shiro had come into the box and now stood waiting behind a chair, studiously not looking over the box’s handrails. Whatever had prompted him to do this, he was resisting his dislike of high places for it.  
  
“You were fine on the plane,” Lance couldn’t help pointing out as he took the offered seat.  
  
“Acrophobia is a funny thing sometimes.” Shiro passed Lance his program and took his own seat. “Provided with an illusion of the ground close under your feet, your mind can protect you from the knowledge that you’re flying.”  
  
Down in the orchestra pit, the musicians began tuning their instruments, a cacophony of beautiful noises rising up. Lance figured the house lights would be going down soon so he’d better have a look at his program while he could still see it clearly.  
  
“ _L’histoire de Manon_!”  
  
Shiro turned a gratified smile on him. “You’re familiar with it?”  
  
“I come from a country of balletomanes,” Lance replied. “I haven’t seen _Manon_ , though.”   
  
He had a passing familiarity with it because the male lead role had been one of legendary danseur Carlos Acosta’s career highlights, but he’d never had an opportunity to see it himself. From what he’d heard, it was a neoclassical ballet based on an Enlightenment era novel, scored with Romantic era music, and choreographed with erotically charged pas de deux straight out of the ‘Me’ decade.  
  
“Some viewers find the characters challenging to sympathize with, especially the heroine,” Shiro whispered as the house lights began to dim, “but that same ambiguity means that every production brings audiences a new interpretation to find meaning in.”  
  
The lights went down as the curtains rose. Strings swelled and harps plucked as a courtyard was revealed, with a coach waiting in the background and a pretty young fille being led center stage to meet her fate...  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro watched Lance’s face, shining with tears made reflective from the stage lights, where Des Grieux was trying to cajole an exhausted Manon through a verdant swamp. It was no use, her spirit was willing but her body was giving out, the prima ballerina abandoning grace to convey Manon’s fatigue through artless staggering. Lance gasped for the lift where Manon raised her arm in the air, reaching for one last chance. Manon’s visceral fight for life and Des Grieux’s desperate attempt to save her was communicated through assisted spins, traveling lifts, throws, and then the final throw ending with Manon limp in Des Grieux’s arms. Tears beaded on Lance’s jaw as Des Grieux tried to lever Manon’s body up off the floor with his own shoulders. Failing, Des Grieux mutely cried to the silent heavens.  
  
The curtain came down, the house lights went up and the audience launched to their feet, Lance among them. _Brava, Bravo, Bravissimo_! The curtain was lifted again, the principal dancers stepping forward for bows as the first rain of roses hit the stage. Lance clapped, crying openly and uncaring of who saw it, a personal feat that floored Shiro even in this setting where it was expected.  
  
This evening had been an unexpected find. When he’d researched shows he could take Lance to that featured live classical music, Shiro hadn’t held out much hope for the ballet, since most companies were on tour at this time of year, and when they toured they almost always used canned music. To find a legendary company performing in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and have it be _Manon_ of all things seemed like kismet, as Lance might have put it.  
  
Naïf, hoyden or hardened pro, no matter how the prima ballerina chose to play her, Manon always came across to Shiro as a person desperately seeking agency and denied at every turn. One thing Shiro knew beyond doubt: he did not want Manon’s fate for Lance.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
As Shiro walked briskly back through the lobby with Lance’s hand in his, Lance lagged behind, basically forcing Shiro to tow him. He was trying to slow Shiro’s roll while working out whether he ought to ask to meet the musicians. He’d noticed the two names on the program’s musical players page, and he felt weird about knowing he was in the same building with them without going to say hello. Except, what would he even say? _‘Hi, you don’t know me, but I know your childhood best friend and your uncle, and they’re both super proud of you and oh by the way here’s your benefactor.’_  
  
The predicament was taken out of his hands by the musicians themselves, who were waiting beside the orchestra section door: a sweet-faced omega in tea-length black satin and a silver-blonde alpha in floor-length black chiffon. Lance recognized them by Hunk’s descriptions alone. He didn’t know how the theater gossip chain worked, but someone must have given them the heads-up that Shiro was in the audience tonight.  
  
“Mister Shirogane,” the omega said, stepping forward with her hands pressed to her chest and her alpha hovering at her back, “it’s such an honor to meet you.”  
  
Lance came to a complete standstill in the hallway, squeezing Shiro’s hand trying to communicate to him that he should stop and talk to this young woman he’d helped without even knowing it.  
  
“Oh?” Shiro halted in front of the earnest omega who’d overcome her shyness in her determination to approach him. “Um, thank you.” _Smooth_. “And whom do I have the pleasure of meeting this evening?” _Better_.  
  
“I’m Shay Barerra-King,” she put forth one hand to clasp, “and this is my alpha.”  
  
“Allura King,” Allura introduced herself, offering a handshake after Shiro had released Shay’s hand. “I’m eternally grateful to you for supporting Shay’s dream of becoming a professional harpist. Your generosity has granted me happiness I may never be able to repay, but if an opportunity should arise I’ll do my best.”  
  
Lance had heard the story from Hunk. Coran’s niece Allura was a violinist, and while she’d wanted to bring Shay with her to San Francisco after joining the symphony, it could have taken her years to achieve a chair with a salary capable of supporting two people, years during which someone else with greater means might have successfully petitioned Shay’s family for courting privileges. Shay’s only recourse under such circumstances would have been to move out on her own, a risky choice for an unclaimed female omega with only a GED to fall back on. Hunk couldn’t have taken her in without agreeing to court her first, which he would have done except that she wouldn’t have been happy. However, thanks to assistance from Shiro’s foundation, Shay had been able to win a place at a conservatory in San Francisco where she’d gained the experience and made the professional contacts necessary to secure her own financial support.   
  
People who didn’t want omegas in the workforce just didn’t understand what a difficult prospect providing for a household could be when only one partner was able to produce income. Lance’s beta mother had become the sole family breadwinner after her husband died, at least until her oldest child Luis came of age to gain legal employment. It became a major factor in most of the decisions the Widow Fernández made for years. Eloping for love had been absolutely out of the question. She couldn’t even remain in her late husband’s hometown when she’d found out Lance was on the way, because of the threat to her employability if the wrong person were to guess the truth of his parentage. She’d chosen to uproot the entire family and take them back to her home province, where her father still lived and could help her find work and start over. Better to try to pass Lance off as the product of an affair with a tourist than for anyone to figure out what really happened.  
  
“I’m glad you’re achieving your dreams,” Shiro said. “Helping people make their dreams come true is what I set out to do when I started the foundation.”  
  
Shiro introduced Lance and more hand clasps were exchanged. Shay smelled sweet like pan de Gloria. Allura had a grip like a red land crab. They parted ways and left the building to find their hired town car waiting on the curb near Memorial Court.  
  
“Have you met them before?” Shiro asked as soon as they were safely ensconced and on their way back to the airport.  
  
So he had noticed Lance’s lack of surprise. “No. I know about them because they’re close friends of Hunk’s.”  
  
“So that’s why he keeps bowing to me.”  
  
Lance laughed. “Yes that’s why.”  
  
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”  
  
“You know I did,” Lance said sincerely. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”  
  
“It was my pleasure.” Shiro smiled. “Are you hungry?”  
  
The café had been booked solid, so they’d snacked on potato chips and Beaujolais from concessions during intermission.   
  
“I could eat, but do we have time?” He had no doubt that Shiro could keep many forms of transport waiting for him without a set timetable, but didn’t airplanes have flight plans they had to adhere to?  
  
“I believe I can work something out.” Shiro grinned at him and started tapping on his phone.  
  
The pizza delivery guy met them at the hangar, and Sparks was very gracious about serving it to them with the remains of their bottle of wine, which had been kept chilled for their return. Captain Ellington’s ebullient voice came over the intercom to announce clear weather conditions all the way to Los Angeles County.  
  
Somehow pizza tasted better at 41,000 feet. Below them, the city lights twinkled like stars and the Golden Gate bridge sparkled like a drawbridge out of a fairytale. Shiro had called up Tchaikovsky’s _Sleeping Beauty_ on the jet’s stereo system to enhance the ambience. The clock was chiming down again.  
  
“I don’t want it to end,” Lance admitted.  
  
“I’d love to stay up with you all night but I have work tomorrow,” Shiro said, sounding as regretful about it as Lance felt. “I can’t face business sharks looking like a zombie.”  
  
“Do you have to, though?” Lance watched the subtle play of emotions cross Shiro’s arresting face under the jet’s wash lights. “I mean, you’re the boss of your own enterprise right? You make the decisions.”  
  
“Yes.” Shiro looked contemplative. “I am in charge of my destiny.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance fell asleep on the plane and Shiro sincerely envied his optimism. He might not be afraid to ride in an aircraft, but that was a far cry from feeling relaxed enough to take a nap while in flight. Lance’s animated face smoothed into such a sweet repose when he slept. Shiro didn’t have the heart to wake him, so he endured Kai’s restrained smirking as he carried Lance off the plane with Sparks spotting him, while the apotheosis of _Sleeping Beauty_ played majestically from the cabin at his back.  
  
They rode back to the hotel in the limo, Lance comfortably settled into Shiro’s arms. Soon he would have to break the spell and wake Lance up. For now, though, he could admit to himself that he didn’t want this to end either.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
_“Betting on Sincline again, chief?”_  
  
“He’s going to win soon, Janka.” Lotor checked odds on his favorite predictions website as he spoke with his bookie. “Any race now, I can feel it.”  
  
_“Uh huh. Just for the sake of argument, what if Sincline doesn’t win this one? How are you gonna cover your losses, chief? I’m only asking ‘cause word on the street is your old man stopped backing your plays.”_  
  
The old man had probably chortled with glee as he signed the paperwork from the study of his country house. Lotor’s lip curled to imagine it. First Zarkon had banished him to boarding schools in his mother’s homeland in his zeal to bend his son to his will. But instead of breaking, Lotor had thrived and then elected to stay, so now Zarkon had taken the measure of cutting his son off from the family trust fund.  
  
Luckily Lotor had found other avenues for accumulating currency on short notice, one of which was as reliable as clockwork. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve another resource to tap.”  
  
_“I’m trusting you chief, ‘cause you’ve been good for it in the past and that’s the only reason.”_  
  
Lotor took Janka’s meaning. Janka wasn’t a knee-breaker himself but he was known to use outsourced knee-breakers on occasion. Lotor reassured the bookie and then he called up that aforementioned sponsor’s office just to make sure he was hard at work raising venture capital like he was supposed to be doing. He got his answering service.  
  
_“I’m sorry, Mister Shirogane has taken a personal day. I can relay a message for you if you like.”_  
  
That couldn’t be right. Shiro did enjoy his fusty leisure pursuits, but when he was on a business trip he never failed to utilize all available business hours working on whatever project had captured his interest. He was obsessive in his devotion to plowing under every industrial park within his purview in order to make way for bluebirds, Bambi and babies in strollers, all to prove a useless point to a father who never gave a damn about it when he was alive and certainly couldn’t care now that he was dead.   
  
There was no way in hell he was out on a personal day. He was up to something. Lotor called his hotel. That dizzy blonde day clerk who behaved like she was three olives short of a martini answered.  
  
_“Mister Shirogane has gone out for the day. May I take a message?”_  
  
“No need.” Lotor fired off a text to Narti. “I’ll find him myself.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance laughed and kicked his bare feet in the fountain’s splash pad. Shiro stepped back out of the line of fire and made an unconvincing pouty face. He was wearing a suit on his day off, but when he’d mentioned a trip to the park Lance had dressed for frolicking in cropped twill separates and the close-toed sandals he now carried in one hand.  
  
“What do I have to do to make you stop trying to get my clothes wet?” Shiro asked, only he didn’t really sound all that put out about it.  
  
Lance was happy to humor him because he was about to introduce Shiro’s taste buds to bliss in a paper tray. “There’s a food truck parked over there, let’s get some lunch.”  
  
There were actually several food trucks parked near the stand of olive trees and attracting a crowd of customers, but one in particular had caught Lance’s eye. It was from a taqueria that sent a truck over to his neck of the woods every so often and Keith always ran for it like a child after the ice cream truck whenever it came around.  
  
Twenty minutes later they walked away with canned soft drinks and a box of tacos.  
  
“Short ribs on a taco,” Shiro said wonderingly.  
  
“Genius, right?”  
  
Shiro made a case for taking their meal to one of the park’s pink picnic tables, but Lance won the bid to sit under an olive tree when he produced a certain pashmina throw blanket out of his shoulder bag.  
  
Shiro folded speedily. “I was thinking about buying that throw blanket from the hotel anyway, so I suppose it’s alright to lay it on the ground.”  
  
Lance thought he heard Shiro mutter something about making underwear out of that blanket as he set up their little picnic under dappled shade.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Narti snapped a picture and sent it to her boss. He called her moments later.  
  
_“Is he really canoodling barefoot in the park with that mail order omega?”_  
  
Shirogane and the omega had finished their lunch and then the omega had removed Shirogane’s shoes and socks and proceeded to massage his feet while he yakked on his phone.  
  
“Seems that way.”  
  
_“Why would Shiro decide to court seriously now, of all the times? And why didn’t he let me pick the omega?”_  
  
Narti didn’t really have an answer for that one, nor did she think one was expected.  
  
_“Keep an eye on them. If at any point that omega looks like a high-level corporate spy I need to know about it.”_  
  
The omega plucked the cell phone out of Shirogane’s hand, powered it down and tucked it back in his suit pocket, apparently while he was still talking to someone. Narti didn’t think corporate espionage was the order of the day here, but hers was not to wonder why.  
  
“You got it, boss.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I was right in the middle of a market update.” Shiro tried to sound miffed but he was just too relaxed to put any real grump into it.  
  
“You were listening to an IVR on your day off.” Lance looked completely unrepentant. “Somewhere we lost track of the whole skating out of work part of today’s itinerary.”  
  
Shiro sat up against the tree trunk. Did they both lose track? Lance had been rubbing his feet, which suddenly did seem more like it fit within the boundaries of his job description than something he’d done just to be nice. The suggestion of it troubled Shiro. He wondered what it would be like for Lance to do something like that for him because he wanted to, not because it was part of his job. He’d seen Lance genuinely upset and genuinely moved, but had he ever seen Lance genuinely content while awake without an orgasm involved?  
  
Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he had, at least once. “About that itinerary.” He stood and helped Lance to his feet. “I’ve got an idea.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
_“Horseback riding?”_ Lotor made it sound like she told him they’d gone to Cape Canaveral to shoot themselves into outer space. _“Why aren’t you on them?”_  
  
“They’re on a guided tour,” Narti reminded him for the third time. “I can’t go without being made, but I’m putting a drone in the air, so they won’t be completely out of my sight.”  
  
With the Bossman reassured as much as could be done without trussing Shirogane up and toting him back to the Manigford building like a lost calf, Narti got out of the sedan to retrieve her trusty quadcopter from the trunk. She’d had to backtrack to the Hollyridge trailhead and park on the curb to avoid being spotted by her quarry, but given the range of her drone she was confident she’d be able to locate Shirogane and his omega on the trail with no trouble.  
  
Hopefully they took the one hour tour and not the two hour. Narti could easily duck her target, but she still had the residents in this neighborhood to keep an eye out for.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Are you having fun?”  
  
“Are you kidding?” Lance looked over at his riding companion. “I’m having a blast! Thank you so much for doing this!”  
  
Shiro smiled, looking very pleased with himself, and to Lance’s mind he’d earned his self-congratulatory kicks. He’d whisked them off to a sporting goods store, and they’d walked out dressed appropriately for an afternoon ride in the Hollywood Hills. Now here they were, out on the trail with their guide and several other people who’d booked the same time slot. Lance was riding a sweet-tempered sorrel mare named Clarabelle, and Shiro was on a grullo named Mo. It amazed Lance how quickly Shiro had made this spur of the moment plan come together.  
  
Shiro also made performance fabrics look way sexier than the manufacturer could have possibly envisioned, riding with a confidence that suggested this was not his first time in a saddle either. “I’m surprised you haven’t hiked up this way before,” Shiro said.  
  
Living in the shadow of the Hollywood sign didn’t guarantee the wherewithal to go up into the hills for a closer view, even if it was technically free. Lance didn’t think it was a good idea to explain that in so many words while in the company of tourists who had no idea he was a sex worker, so he just shrugged. “Just never had the time, I guess.”  
  
Shiro blinked, his face blanking out with the sudden realization of where his assumptions had just led him. Lance couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a pall over this so-far wonderful vacation from his real life, so he sidled Clarabelle a little closer beside Mo.  
  
“How about you? Come up here often?” He waggled his eyebrows ridiculously, and bless the saints, Shiro laughed.  
  
“This is my first time riding up here, too.”  
  
Lance breathed an internal sigh of relief. Swaying shoulder to shoulder, they continued along the dusty track towards a spectacular view.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
As she pressed the shutter remote to get another snapshot of the lovebirds, Narti noticed a glint of light and a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. Someone was peeking over their fence at her with a cell phone pressed to their ear, probably calling a tow truck. It was time to recall the drone and scram. She could wait for the sweethearts to drive past her and pick up their trail again farther on down the road.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro drove carefully down narrow, winding streets as the sun began to descend over the chaparral-covered hills. He had already given Kai the day off, so he’d rented a convertible thinking as long as he was intentionally doing the tourist thing he might as well go big. Or small, as the case may be. The only convertible the rental service had available for him was a BMW, which Shiro was now grateful for because it was easier to maneuver the coupe cabriolet past close-together houses clinging to the sides of cliffs and locals driving like they were on the New York State Thruway instead of an undivided highway with lanes the size of a bike path.  
  
The wind in his hair and Lance laughing and chattering in the seat next to him made the stress of driving much more bearable, though. He really ought to consider getting his own personal car to drive, if only for moments like this.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“They’re just eating and talking.” Narti sat parked across the street from the diner with a protein box and an iced coffee resting on the seat next to her. She would rather be eating, and not talking.  
  
_“What are they talking about?”_  
  
“Silly nonsense.” Narti was a reasonably good lip reader, and she had a panoramic view of the couple sitting at a table in front of the plate glass windows. “Who makes the best french fries. Whether it’s rude to eat off another person’s plate without asking.” Of course it was. “Why do milkshakes taste better shared.” They didn’t, that was simply not true. “Just ridiculous nonsense. Boss, I understand your concerns here, but so far I’m not seeing anything more insidious than that they’re just really into each other.”  
  
_“Preposterous. Why would Shiro suddenly become lovesick over some prosaic omega after losing interest in every well-bred omega I’ve put before him over the last decade?”_  
  
Maybe because most of those omegas had been chosen according to Lotor’s tastes and not Shirogane’s? But Narti knew better than to voice that thought out loud. “Maybe he’s just ready to settle down.” More power to him. Narti went home to a cat every day and that was just the way she liked it.  
  
_“He picked a hell of a time to suddenly want a family. Stay on him until he goes back to his hotel, and then report back to me.”_  
  
Narti suppressed a sigh. “Yes sir.” Hopefully the happy couple wouldn’t decide to hit the bars after supper. She hadn’t signed up for this shit.  
  
Speaking of, though. After hanging up with Lotor, Narti dialed her real employer.  
  
_“What news?”_ There was really no need for more identification than that to speak freely. Even if this didn’t happen to be a secured line known only to a select few, Honerva’s voice was incredibly distinctive.  
  
“He’s had me running surveillance on Shirogane and his brokered fiancé all day.”  
  
_“I would rather that you were surveilling my son.”_  
  
“Believe me ma’am, so would I.”   
  
Lotor believed Narti to be his bodyguard, and she was, but she was also a member of his mother’s security retinue on special assignment from her. Her work as a research scientist attached to NATO required extensive travel, and a protection detail which she supplemented with her own people among whom Narti was one of her most trusted.  
  
_“So, Takashi is finally going to tie the knot?”_  
  
Narti watched the couple still talking on the other side of the glass, the omega gesturing wildly and the alpha leaning into his personal bubble attentively. “Looks that way.”  
  
_“What do we know about this one?”_  
  
“Not much,” Narti admitted. “Lotor didn’t vet him. They’re using an L.A. based matchmaker that nobody around here has ever heard of before. The omega is polite, likes horses and was not receptive to Lotor flirting with him in front of Shirogane. He’s a very young Latino with a Scottish name.”  
  
_“Dual citizen like Takashi’s mother, perhaps?”_  
  
“Perhaps.”  
  
_“If Takashi marries, then perhaps he’ll finally stop enabling my son’s thrill-seeking activities.”_  
  
Narti said nothing. She knew her employer was just thinking out loud. Honerva did not want to undermine her son’s independence. She just wished he’d be independent in a more risk-averse manner.  
  
_“Keep me informed on developments as they occur. I don’t want anything to prevent Takashi from finally removing himself from the situation. He can throw his money at that omega all he wants for all I care, so long as he stops subsidizing my son’s bad habits. If the local authorities or any other organizations begin to close in, you know what to do.”_  
  
“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith slunk into Sal’s for a snack break. He’d made enough money to pay off his tab and indulge himself in a seltzer, and then he was thinking about calling it a night. Hunk had rewired and replaced his overhead light with something that had mood lighting and he was looking forward to getting into his comfy jammies and testing it out. He had no idea what had possessed him to wear bicycle shorts for work this evening, but while they garnered him some necessary attention, they were a literal pain in the ass to skin out of and uncomfortably chafing to put back on afterward.   
  
He’d been out on the street for hours, and no sign of Nyma in all that time. Maybe Hunk was right and she really had given up.  
  
“Hey Sal.” Keith muscled in at the bar, reaching for the pouch he kept on a strap under his clothes. He tugged it to the top of the gaping neck hole of his cut-out t-shirt and teased out the bills while staying alert to his counter neighbors. He always made sure to sort the bills when he put them in there so that he never had to waste time and attention on shuffling through them when he needed to pay for something. “Hit me with a can of coconut LaCroix.”  
  
“Living it up, are we?” But Sal cracked open a can and slid it across the bar, taking the stack of bills in exchange.  
  
Keith tipped his head back and took a long, grateful drink. He knew better than to buy anything on tap or in a bottle in here. It would either be watered down or some generic crap put in the brand name bottle and resealed. Why had he asked for coconut, though? His favorite flavor was tangerine.  
  
“Well if it isn’t the lone ranger.” A whiff of cotton candy announced Ezor’s presence as she pulled up to the bar on Keith’s left.  
  
“Heard little Lancey Lance moved up in the world.” Zethrid’s raspberry scent drifted up on Keith’s right. “How’s that working out for you, pardner?”  
  
“What do you want, Zethrid?”  
  
“We want to cut you in on the deal of a lifetime,” came from behind Keith, and really? He turned around to face Nyma.  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?”  
  
“Nope,” Ezor said cheerfully. “You lure ‘em in, we bang ‘em out, it’s the best division of labor. We’ll make twice the bank we’re making now.”  
  
“You want to use me as bait for your bash and grab.” Keith made sure to pitch his voice with some volume. “No way, I’m not in.” Nobody in this bar was going to faint at the notion of fights or stealing, but there was a basic code that members of this community were expected to adhere to, and it was simply this: don’t invite a raid from the vice squad.  
  
“I’m not asking you, pretty boy,” Nyma snarled, even while Zethrid and Ezor started shuffling away from the bar. Bold as brass those two, but they could read a room better than Nyma. “I’m telling you, you’re gonna flaunt that ass on the street corner and lead your tricks to the alley– hey! Where are you going?” Ezor and Zethrid were already halfway out the door. “Get back here, we’re not done with the twink!”  
  
The twink was done with her, though. Keith took advantage of her turned back and ran for the bathrooms, since she was blocking the access to the door and he didn’t want to get arrested for assault by throwing down in front of the entire bar. You never knew when there were frat boys or other normies hanging around slumming with the wildlings, and unlike Sal’s regulars, they’d call the cops.  
  
Maybe before Hunk he wouldn’t have cared much about that but, well... that was before Hunk.  
  
“Come back here you little cocksucker!” Nyma gave chase through the crowd.  
  
Keith hit the bathroom door at a run, surprising two dudes conducting their business at the cracked old urinals. Sal’s unisex bathroom was old as Methuselah and covered in graffiti. Keith banged into the omega stall in the wild hope that it was unoccupied, and glory be, it was. The bidet had been yanked out of this stall years before so that Sal could pass a handicap accessible bathroom inspection, but Keith wasn’t here to use the can. He took the door’s edge in both hands and waited.  
  
Nyma burst into the bathroom, spotted Keith standing there, and smiled with the craziness of the severely sleep-deprived. “Gotcha now!”  
  
She sprang forth, and Keith threw the door as hard as he could. Some enterprising soul had removed the blocks that prevented the hinges from swinging both ways, probably hoping to walk in on an omega and get an eye and snoot full. The door hit Nyma in the face hard enough to knock her out cold.  
  
“Oops.” Keith caught the door on the return swing and looked over at the bathroom’s conscious occupants with a deadpan expression. “My hands slipped.”  
  
“Doncha hate when that happens?” said one guy, and the other just shrugged.  
  
Exhaling in relief, Keith climbed on top of the omega stall’s toilet tank to peek out the awning window. It would be a tight squeeze requiring some acrobatics on his part, but Keith could Cirque du Soleil himself out into the alley to sneak home and the shorts were actually working in his favor for such an endeavor.  
  
Standing there under the post lamp glaring up at him like a tiger stood Zethrid.  
  
“Fuck.”   
  
Zethrid outweighed Keith by a good fifteen pounds, all of it muscle. With no escape route, no bystander assistance and no objects to throw in her path, she could stomp him into paste, and in that alley she had all three advantages. Was this what had happened to Corral? Had she climbed out of this same window trying to get away from one creep only to find another waiting for her on the ground?  
  
Keith clambered down off the toilet. Ezor was no doubt waiting out front, so he was effectively cornered. He could take Ezor in a fight, but it was more visible to the public and he’d wind up getting hauled into the pokey for disorderly conduct. What else could he do? He needed backup. He pulled his cell phone out of his pouch and speed dialed Lance.  
  
_“Hey! I’m busy being sexy right now. You know what to do!”_ Beep!  
  
Since he got voice mail instead of a generic computer voice, the phone was paid up, which meant Lance didn’t have it on him or he would have answered. Shit shit shit.   
  
Or, maybe he really was busy being sexy. Far be it from Keith to interrupt him at work, but he needed help. He found the last number Lance had called him from in his call history and tapped callback.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Hunk was sitting in his office going over end of day reports when his softphone alerted him to the incoming call. He put down his coffee mug to look at his computer monitor and recognized the cell phone number Keith had given him in the caller ID. Lance and Shiro still hadn’t returned from their day trip, so there was no one in the penthouse suite to answer the phone. Hunk had seconds to decide whether to let the call route back to Cinda or intercept it.  
  
It was Keith, so there really was no question. He intercepted it.  
  
_“Lance?”_  
  
Hunk’s chest squeezed hard at the vulnerability revealed in his tone. “I’m here, Keith. Tell me what you need.”  
  
A soft gasp of surprise. _“Hunk!”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith stood near a small pack of normies clumped near the door trying to decide whether they wanted to go deeper into the dim and din of the bar’s interior. Beyond them, the security door was wide open as it always was during Sal’s operating hours. The attached storm door let in the street lights and a slivered view of the sidewalk. Keith had told Hunk to ignore the no parking signs and just pull right up near the door. He pondered how to get through Ezor, who kept walking past to grin at him through the laminated glass. He’d timed her and figured she was pacing from one crosswalk to the other, back and forth. Right now she was on the farther corner (most likely) and the view to the street was clear.  
  
Hunk told him to watch for an orange SUV. Keith was still having trouble believing that Hunk had offered to pick him up and that he’d agreed to this half-assed plan without putting up much of an argument. There was an angry little child voice in the back of his mind warning him that he was likely to be waiting all night and not to be surprised if Hunk didn’t show at all.  
  
Then an orange SUV roared up next to the sidewalk right in front of the door and Keith’s nervous system was flooded with bone-melting, muscle-sagging relief. He shook himself. He didn’t have time to turn into a ragdoll. He had to move, before Ezor made her return lap.  
  
He flung open the storm door and hit the sidewalk at a jog, eyes on the passenger door of the SUV, and the silhouette of a large man in the driver’s seat just beyond it. He reached out for the door latch, had his fingertips on cool metal, when something hit him from the side and slammed him backwards against the vehicle.  
  
He looked up into Ezor’s glittering eyes as she leaned him back over the warm hood of the SUV.  
  
“Listen here, punk– ”  
  
Whatever Ezor had been about to say was cut off by a low, reverberating growl. The sort of growl you rarely heard in public anymore, the kind poorly imitated on TV and in movies. It was the deep, resonant growl of a well-and-truly pissed off alpha.  
  
Ezor froze with Keith’s t-shirt clutched in her hands. “Heh, sorry about your car mister, I’ll just take my business with this omega– ”  
  
She was interrupted by the hacking snarl of an alpha on his way from being angry to enraged, and it was louder and closer holy shit Hunk was out of the vehicle.  
  
“I’ll just scram.” And then she did.  
  
Then Hunk was there, lifting Keith off the hood of his SUV as gently as if he’d just found a stray kitten. He scented the top of Keith’s head, his rumble vibrating comfortingly through his broad chest. Keith basked in his radiant heat and butter mochi scent, trilling out his thanks because he couldn’t find the words.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some folks might have noticed the reference to Darrell Stoker Pidge in this chapter, but have no fear if you came here for VLD Pidge: Katie Holt Pidge is also in this fic, appearing next chapter in a small but pivotal role.


	6. Hollywood Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance decides to break his one rule. Shiro makes a couple of offers. One goes over better than the other one. Many personal revelations are had. Lotor is a dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for all of the kudos and comments! Thanks go out to blue wonderer, meeokie, Final Fortuna, SpaceSquirrelQueen, shiro gone yee, Metalotaku and everyone who has read, kudoed, commented and just enjoyed, thank you so much!!

Lance closed the jar of exfoliating night cream and set it back on the bathroom vanity, which was looking far more ‘alpha and omega’ than it had that very first morning. He’d found a missed call from Keith when he got home and texted him a question mark, and gotten back a Lenny face, which in Keith speak meant ‘as you were’ so he’d proceeded with Operation Makeup Sex.   
  
Lance checked out his appearance in the mirror. Fresh and dewy moisturized skin, freshly washed hair all mussed and sweet-smelling, nightshirt sexily disheveled with a condom tucked into the buttoned pocket, legs bare and no underwear. He was ready for action. He pointed finger guns at his reflection and left the bathroom.  
  
He prowled to the bedroom doorway and struck a leggy pose. “Hey there hot stuff.”  
  
Hot stuff was passed out in the bed, gloriously shirtless with a tablet in his relaxed hands. So much for the hot makeup sex.   
  
“Wow, didn’t think my shower took that long.”  
  
Lance crept over to the bedside. Shiro was always up before he was and usually awake after, so this was his first golden opportunity to watch him sleep.   
  
Shiro’s eyelashes feathered his high cheekbones like a raven’s wings, his firm mouth adorably soft in slumber. His well-proportioned limbs were relaxed but the muscles revealed were not soft. The man was ripped. He was also scarred: long, thin incision scars all over his right arm, from shoulder to wrist. Lance had seen those before, when they’d bathed together, but there never seemed to be the leisure of drinking his fill with his eyes while Shiro was awake. His flaws only seemed to reinforce what a beautiful man he was.  
  
Lance reached forth to gently pull the tablet from slack hands and set it on the nightstand. Delicately, he traced a fingertip down one of the lines on Shiro’s bicep. The well-cared-for scar had flattened, leaving behind pale tissue slightly smoother to the touch than the skin around it. It looked as silken as Lance’s own lips. He leaned over Shiro, close enough to feel his body heat through the nightshirt, as he lightly kissed the scar. It felt as silken as Lance’s own lips.  
  
He was caught in strong arms as Shiro suddenly stirred.   
  
Lance looked into grey eyes misty with drowsiness. “Sorry to wake you.”  
  
The large warm hand gripping Lance’s thigh grazed up to curve around his hip.  
  
“S’fine.” Shiro’s voice was coarse with sleep. “What sort of panties are these?”  
  
“I call them ‘bare ass panties,’ it’s gonna be the next big thing.”  
  
Shiro smiled, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “S’gonna lead to the next big thing.”  
  
“Takashi Shirogane, did you just throw a dick pun at me?”  
  
Shiro actually giggled, and it made something that Lance had been carrying tightly in his chest start to loosen.  
  
“C’mere.” Shiro leaned up to capture Lance’s mouth.  
  
Lance returned the kiss enthusiastically, putting one hand into Shiro’s soft, short hair as he felt fingers carding through his own. Shiro rolled them, cradling the back of Lance’s head as he fell underneath the alpha.  
  
“I want you.” Shiro’s scent was soft and sweet like sanctuary incense.  
  
“I’m here.”  
  
They kissed again, warm and wet. Shiro leaned over Lance supported on one corded arm. Lance ran his hands over Shiro’s bunched shoulders as Shiro glided his hand under the nightshirt to lay against Lance’s heart. He wound one arm between them to tug the drawstring of Shiro’s sleep pants free and his shaft fell into Lance’s hand, an ardent weight which he pressed to his belly. He caressed the velvety length and Shiro groaned, brushing his palm from Lance’s chest down to grasp their erections together in his fist, massaging until slick trickled down Lance’s thighs, hot and fragrant.  
  
“Please,” Shiro whispered against Lance’s mouth.  
  
“Yes,” he panted in reply.  
  
Shiro stroked inside like sheer perfection as Lance’s legs wrapped around his waist, rocking them both in time with their heartbeats until neither knew where the other ended and they began. Shiro bent his forehead to Lance’s neck, his breath a heated counter-melody to the rhythm of their hips. Lance could feel the pressure growing at the place where they were joined.  
  
“Please,” he keened.  
  
“Yes,” Shiro promised.  
  
His thrusts sank deep and true as his knot expanded, withdrawal dragging tighter and tighter.  
  
“Lance,” Shiro sounded very close to the edge, “are you sure?”  
  
“Yes, I’m sure,” Lance knew he sounded just as ragged. “Give me your knot!”  
  
Shiro surged forward on top of Lance to pin him at an even deeper angle, hips pistoning faster, eyes drawing him in like the moon draws water. Like a weir against a torrent he held, exquisitely taut, until he broke, overflowing as Shiro’s cries joined his and carried them both into the eddies of the most intense orgasm of Lance’s life.  
  
Lance eventually drifted back to the reality that he was tied to Shiro for probably about thirty minutes, give or take. He only had two prior occasions of personal experience to compare with, neither of whom had been mature alphas, but he remembered his health classes very well.  
  
Shiro’s body covered him like a knit blanket, until he turned them sideways, legs arranged carefully like braided yarn, so that they could wait it out more comfortably. Lance rucked up his nightshirt and ran a palm over his swollen belly.  
  
“You gave me a pot,” he said wonderingly.  
  
“It’ll fall out with the knot,” Shiro assured him. “Haven’t you been with a full-grown alpha before?”  
  
“Sure, but I’ve only ever knotted with real young guys.”  
  
“Adolescent alphas don’t produce as much semen.” Shiro hiked Lance’s outside leg higher over his hip, drawing him closer. “If a bad experience put you off knotting, I hope I haven’t just made it worse.”  
  
Fishing for a compliment? This big bad alpha? Lance smiled. Shiro could be so endearing at times. “You were amazing,” he said, and he was not gilding the lily.  
  
“What made you decide to stop knotting?” Shiro rubbed his thumb in soothing circles over Lance’s hip. “If you don’t mind me asking. Was it those young guys?”  
  
Lance watched Shiro’s thumb working back, forth and around over his hipbone. “Maybe? The first guy told me he would marry me, made me believe it, then ditched me soon as he got what he wanted. Second guy was just to make me feel better about the first guy, but it didn’t work.” Lance shrugged. “The rule was Keith’s, I just agreed it was a good idea. Knotting leaves you too open.” For ridicule, for heartbreak. For lots of unquantifiable things.  
  
“Those guys didn’t deserve you,” Shiro rumbled soothingly. “Your friend might be a little bit paranoid.”  
  
“He has his reasons.” Lance ran his palm up Shiro’s arm to rub his shoulder. “What about you? You told me you don’t do knots either.”  
  
“I have to be careful.” Shiro’s eyes were soft like rain clouds. “I had someone sent after me to try to steal fresh semen once.”  
  
“Whoa.” Like a stud horse?! “For real?”  
  
“Yes, really.” Shiro settled into the mattress. “You see, my father was a wealthy and powerful alpha who left two sons by two different mates to inherit his legacy. And the younger son, the favored son, presented as omega shortly before our father died.” Shiro’s fingers began to migrate back up Lance’s rib cage. “Kuro still inherited all property in Japan since I had to give up my dual citizenship, but all international holdings went to me as the only alpha descendant. Turned out this was the greater part of my father’s legacy and my stepmother was not happy. He became convinced he could draw out the inevitable if he could just get pregnant one more time, but my father was no longer in sound enough health for that kind of activity, and well. I’m sure you’re aware that male omegas can’t just use a turkey baster and hope for the best.”  
  
“Yeah, when my cousin Barros decided to stop waiting for Miss Right and go with a sperm donor, the doctors made him time his heat cycle like a Swiss watch, and told him that his donor ought to be under fifty-five, ‘cause you know. Better motility on the little swimmers.” Lance wriggled his arms around Shiro’s middle. “Wouldn’t it have come out that you were the biological father?”  
  
“Eventually.” Shiro submitted to the loose embrace with a grateful sigh. “Would have caused a big scandal, too, but it also would have ensured him another shot at getting more than the legitime, especially if the baby grew up to be an alpha.”  
  
“So, how did he get busted?”  
  
“His agent was real insistent on cleaning up alone afterward, so much that I was getting a funny feeling about it. You shouldn’t neglect your instincts. So I walked in on him in the bathroom and caught him opening a secret compartment in a bottle of mouth wash, it was like Jurassic Park Lance, I swear.”  
  
“How did you know it was your stepmother’s doing and not just some rando?”  
  
“My cousin Shinji.” Shiro smiled in a way that told Lance that he was fond of this cousin. “He has a gift for being in the right place at the right time to witness family trainwrecks, and he loves telling the stories. He overheard Tatsuo yelling on the phone at his partner in crime who, believe it or not, was named Dick.” His smile faltered. “So that’s how I learned to be more cautious about who I share my knot with.”  
  
Lance squeezed him in a tighter hug. “I’m not going to steal your little swimmers.”  
  
“I completely trust you with my little swimmers.” Shiro hugged him back and stole another kiss.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _“Go ahead and make yourself at home,”_ he’d said, _“I’ll whip us up a quick dinner.”_  
  
 _Here it comes_ , Keith had thought, _I knew it was too good to be true_.  
  
But then Hunk had just bustled off down the hallway leaving Keith standing alone in the guest room, free to sneak out a window with an armload of his stuff if he wanted to. He was either completely sincere or completely dumb, and Keith already knew he wasn’t dumb.  
  
Hunk had insisted on taking Keith home with him after what transpired at Sal’s. _“They know where you live? No way, uh uh, you’re coming home with me tonight.”_ He’d remained unswayed at being informed that all three were betas. _“Dude, I’m an alpha and I got into the courtyard just by offering your skeezy landlord twenty bucks. Also, Lance won’t be home to watch your back.”_  
  
Okay, so he had a valid point there.  
  
Hunk’s guest room was pretty much the way he’d described it when he pitched the idea of hosting him for the night: a pleasantly homey office with a few multi-functional furniture pieces chosen so that the room could double as an extra bedroom. Unless the room could transform like Aunt May’s basement on _Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends_ , there was no den of iniquity hiding in plain view here. Keith wasn’t even sure more than one person could fit on that daybed.  
  
Hunk’s house was a Craftsman that had been converted to a duplex and then converted back into a house. Hunk had done a lot of the renovation work himself, waxing effusive about it on the drive to his Culver City neighborhood. It was hard to appreciate much of the exterior in the dark, but Keith was impressed by the work he’d done on the interior. He’d chosen to leave both master suites intact, and Keith was pretty sure the one in the guest room was the original. He just couldn’t see Hunk purposely picking out a Cinderella tub for this bathroom, even if he wasn’t going to be the primary user.  
  
Keith’s tired feet carried him farther into the tiny bathroom as motion sensor lamps helpfully lit the way. He was really feeling the aches in his muscles and the residue of his night’s work under his clothes. He shut the bathroom door and stripped down.  
  
Hunk had stocked the bathroom with a vanilla-scented bath gift set and replaced the shower-head with a high pressure combo type. Even as he lathered up and luxuriated under the hot water, Keith’s mind was working overtime on the available evidence. This was not the setup of a guy who rarely expected to have guests. It was more like he’d had this room slated as a home office and then started to get the room ready for a guest to live in it, and then gave up suddenly before he was done redecorating. Keith was going to address it over dinner. Maybe he was being too uppity like his school guidance counselor Old Iron Pants Iverson always warned him about, but if he was going to continue courting he didn’t want to be a rebound.  
  
Keith wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist and scrubbed his hair with another one as he emerged from the bathroom. He was not eager to put his dirty clothes back on, and he totally wasn’t pouting at the thought that these towels might have been purchased for someone else. He stopped short when he saw the folded fabrics that had been laid across the daybed while he was in the shower. Hunk had come in here while he was bathing, and he hadn’t indulged himself in a sneak peek. Keith would have noticed if that door had opened, due to the displacement of steam-heated air. Omegas were sensitive to temperature changes as a general rule, and Keith more so than most.  
  
He found extra pillows, soft sheets and blankets, and powder blue sweats with a mustang rampant across the chest of the sweatshirt. There was a note nestled on top of the sweats.  
  
 _My high school PE clothes are the only ones I have that might fit you, but you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to._  
  
Keith brought the sweatshirt to his nose and breathed deep. It smelled of Hunk and fabric softener, and nothing else. Keith wanted it to smell of himself. In fact, the thought of leaving his scent all over Hunk’s house was overwhelmingly appealing all of the sudden.   
  
He put the sweats on and left the guest room. His nose led him to the kitchen where he found Hunk transferring a skillet of fried rice to a serving platter. He turned around and smiled at Keith’s entrance, and wow. When Hunk put his soul into it he had a fucking great smile, like the sunrise over Pacific Palisades Park. He was wearing one of those ‘kiss the cook’ aprons, so Keith decided to take that as an open invitation and padded right into his personal space.  
  
“Uh...” Hunk still had a pan in one hand and a platter in the other, so he had no hands free to stop Keith from doing whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was to stand chest to chest and wind his arms around those massive shoulders so he could scent that masculine jawline while purring like an outboard motor.  
  
“Keith...” Hunk sounded undone, but he did not drop the items he was carrying, his powerful shoulder muscles remained flexed under Keith’s roaming hands as he maintained a steady grip. Imagining himself being held steady in that grip was kind of a turn on.  
  
Oh who was he fooling, it was definitely a turn on.  
  
“That’s my name,” Keith hummed, and then he raised on his toes to kiss the cook.  
  
Hunk’s lips were full and firm, his fresh green coconut scent intensifying as Keith held his warm solid body close before breaking the kiss and leaning back slightly. Nose to nose, Keith stared into Hunk’s cognac eyes.   
  
“You’ve got such a way,” Hunk rumbled.  
  
“I could say the same for you.”  
  
They cracked open bottles of beer and ate homemade fried rice topped with eggs sunny-side up at Hunk’s oak table.  
  
“I thought you said you were just gonna whip something up.” Creamy egg yolk mixed with the salty, caramelized bits in the rice dish for that perfect flavor and texture combination.  
  
“I did.” Hunk passed the soy sauce. “Didn’t your mom ever make this for you when you were a kid? My mom used to make this all the time, it’s a great way to use up leftovers in the fridge and it hardly takes any time at all.”  
  
Keith laughed. “Whenever my foster mom made leftover fried rice it was takeout heated in the microwave.” Then, because he didn’t want Hunk getting the wrong idea, “She tried her best, it’s just she’s not that much older than me and she’s not exactly what you’d call a maternal soul.”   
  
His alpha cousin tended to stab at problems as if they were all practice dummies but for all that they butted heads, Keith still wasn’t sure a gentler personality could have handled him during his rebellious teenage years. He might owe his high school diploma to Akane being able to match him ox for mule in sheer stubbornness.  
  
“Does she stay in contact with you?” Hunk took another bite with chopsticks made of striped-grain wood.  
  
“Yeah, we talk on the phone a couple times a month.” Keith took a pull of crisp golden ale. “We see each other on New Year’s and my birthday, sometimes other days when it works out. It’s all good.”  
  
“She’s okay with...?” Hunk waved with his chopsticks. “You know.”  
  
Yeah, he knew. Keith rolled his eyes. “No, she’s not okay with it but she can’t do anything about it.” She was not the boss of him.  
  
“She couldn’t have supported you until you found a more stable source of income?” Hunk could sound dry as the Mojave when he wanted to, but Keith had an answer for that.  
  
“Nope.” Keith helped himself to another serving of fried rice. “Once I turned eighteen she couldn’t let me stay there without courting me. Omega relations law.”   
  
She was far enough removed by blood that it technically wasn’t illegal for her to marry him, but it was technically illegal for her to let him share her apartment unpromised. She’d barely managed to stall the county’s Department of Omega, Children and Family Services from serving her with proof of courtship papers until he graduated high school, and then he’d left on his own.   
  
“That damn law,” Hunk scoffed and took a swig of his beer. “I had that same problem with my best friend. I was all set to play the fake-out game too, but luckily Shiro came through and she got to go to conservatory in San Francisco.”  
  
Could this best friend be the person the spare room was being prepared for? The knot started to loosen in Keith’s gut. “You were gonna risk courting fraud?”  
  
“She was my best friend since childhood.” Hunk shrugged eloquently. “I’d have done anything to keep her safe.” Hunk regarded him intently over the beer bottle still lifted in his hand. “As I would for you.”  
  
Oh my my, this man. Keith batted his eyes dramatically. “Is that your way of telling me that your feelings for me are platonic?”  
  
Hunk matched his coy smile. “Nope.”  
  
Keith felt warm from his toes to the tips of his ears. Speaking of best friends, though. “This Shiro guy. Is he the same one Lance has been with all week?”  
  
Hunk nodded soberly. “Yes.”   
  
“He go around helping out omegas a lot?” In Keith’s experience, people who offered help to omegas with no clear expectations set up in advance wanted to name their price for it later, and Lance wasn’t always as exacting as he should be when it came to setting up ground rules.   
  
“Not explicitly.” Hunk looked thoughtfully into the dregs of his beer as if he could use them for divination. “Shay was helped by the charity he founded for high school musicians. Whenever he’s rented the penthouse in the past he’s always been alone. He’s kind of got a reputation for being brilliant at negotiating in the business world and awkward at negotiating his personal life.”  
  
“You’re worried about something.”  
  
“Maybe.” Hunk sighed heavily. “He might be crossing a boundary with Lance and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a solitary clue he’s doing it.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Warm, sated and with a sweet-smelling omega snuggled up close to him, Shiro hadn’t felt so replete in a very long time. Lance was mumbling in his sleep, his breath a steamy vapor against Shiro’s collarbone. Shiro repositioned his cheek against the omega’s soft hair to hear him better.  
  
“...falling in love with you, Shiro. Keith’s gonna kill me.”  
  
Shiro reflexively squeezed Lance tight. Lance murmured but didn’t wake, nuzzling against the alpha with a sigh.  
  
Shiro lay awake for a while longer with an ache in his chest that he didn’t dare name.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance stretched under the bed covers, feeling a fresh new stretch in his downstairs area. It was a tender pang, like the aftereffects of dancing all night long, which was not at all unpleasant. He and Keith used to hit the downtown nightclubs after a shift at the strip club, back in the days when Lance had just moved into Keith’s place, and Keith only worked the boulevard every once in a while. They’d flirt their way past the bouncers and lose themselves in the music until last call, ignoring all the attention they were getting unless one of their admirers was smart enough to offer up some bar food instead of an unfortunately-named drink.  
  
Lance rose from the bed and pulled on his new dressing gown, embroidered lilies climbing through black silk, before leaving the bedroom. Shiro, as usual, was already awake, fully suited up and sipping coffee at the dining room table. The Wall Street Journal was open on the table before him, but his gaze was not upon it.  
  
“You’re looking contemplative this morning.” Lance sat down next to him at the table and helped himself to a cup of coffee. “What’s got your brow all furrowed?”  
  
“I’ve been thinking about what you said to me, the first day.” Shiro looked up from his coffee with a very serious mien. “When you told me I’d want to pack you up in my suitcase.”  
  
A fluttering arose in Lance’s stomach. He fought to suppress it.  
  
“I hope you don’t think I meant that literally, ‘cause I’m limber but I don’t think I’d actually fit in a suitcase.”  
  
“I want to see you again.” Shiro set down his coffee cup. “And I want to go to bed at night knowing that you’re okay.”  
  
The fluttering threatened to take giddy flight. “Really?”  
  
Shiro nodded, smiling. “I put a bid on a penthouse this morning. It’s right on the Hudson, you can see Manhattan across the river from the terrace. I can have you moved in by the end of the week and Kai can drive you wherever you need to go until we can prove your citizenship so that you can get a driver’s license. He gets bored waiting for me to get out of meetings, and he likes you. You can have groceries delivered, clothes, whatever you need.”  
  
Lance set his coffee cup down on the table. He could imagine the picture Shiro was painting. He could see himself staring out at the Hudson River every day like Rapunzel in her tower, waiting and wondering if the charming prince would swoop in or if it was going to be another late night of wishes by starlight. Lonely and wanting something that could not be fulfilled by luxurious surroundings. It wouldn’t be like his life with Keith either, because his neighbors would figure out what he was but they wouldn’t be of his same ilk. It would be like trying to make friends with a whole building full of Xis.  
  
Well, Lance had never been much of one for waiting and wondering.   
  
“In this scenario that you’re proposing,” he said slowly, “am I still an employee?”  
  
“I treat my employees like family,” Shiro said stiffly. “What more do you want, Lance?”  
  
“I don’t know yet,” Lance said as he stood up from the table and stepped out onto the penthouse balcony. “I’m still figuring that out. But you’ve made me realize that I want something more than what I have.”  
  
Shiro followed him to the doorway and hovered there. “I want to give you more than what you’ve had.”  
  
“I want to be more than what I am.” Lance felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. “I want someone to call me their family.”  
  
“You deserve that and more.” Shiro remained on the precipice of the balcony, not venturing out. “I just don’t know if I can be the one to give that to you.”  
  
Shiro’s cell phone rang out a tune that Lance now knew to be the sleazy lawyer friend calling.  
  
“I have to go to work,” Shiro said. “We’ll discuss this further when I get back.”  
  
As he left, Lance’s mind was already made up on one point. Shiro, whose esteem meant so much more than that silly boy back in Varadero, was only offering a plusher version of the same situation that Lance had grown weary of.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _“Hawkins wants to meet with you this afternoon.”_ Lotor sounded breathless. _“I do believe you’ve got him by the short and curlies. You should press your advantage and we can get this thing wrapped up before dinner, my treat. I can score reservations at Most Peculiar Agronomy, you can even bring your little omega with you.”_  
  
Riding down in the elevator with the day operator, Kreitz or Kruetz or something like that, Shiro didn’t bother to hide his grimace. Twigs and shreds of grass and moss served on a paving stone sounded more like penance than a celebratory experience to him, and he was sure Lance would agree, if he even agreed to go.   
  
Now, there was a thought process that needed to be nipped in the bud. “I’ll drop in on Hawkins this morning.”  
  
 _“Excellent! It’s wonderful to have you back in fighting trim, I was afraid you were going soft for a little while there.”_  
  
“Don’t count me out,” Shiro said crossly, and hung up on Lotor. He wasn’t currently of a mind to do anything to please that jackass, he just needed a good distraction and a round with Hawkins would suit him fine.  
  
He stepped off the elevator and stalked toward the front desk to drop off the necklace and collect his messages before heading out. Much to his surprise, the manager himself stood there instead of the blonde day clerk who was usually on duty at this hour.  
  
“Good morning Mister Shirogane,” Garrett said pleasantly as he opened the safe to retrieve the collateral Shiro had left there when the hotel concierge had arranged the loan with Tiffany’s.  
  
“Good morning.”   
  
Garrett knew Lance. Maybe he could offer some insight into the conundrum that was currently making Shiro feel like he had a beehive trapped in his chest.   
  
“Mister Garrett,” he asked cautiously, feeling him out, “is it possible for two people to have the same conversation and get wildly different interpretations out of it?”  
  
Garrett looked up with wide fawn eyes. “I’m not sure I follow Mister Shirogane, you’ll have to be a little more specific.”  
  
“Say you have a contract negotiated with someone, but somewhere along the line this person believes the contract was up for renegotiation, but you don’t know how they came to believe this.” Shiro passed the Tiffany’s box across the desk counter. “There wasn’t any new offer, it wasn’t ever actually discussed.”  
  
“Perhaps a token was offered?” Garrett looked from the box to Shiro rather pointedly. “Something, just for example, that traditionally would have been considered a signal of a different sort of contract altogether.” Garrett opened the box and examined the contents. “One courting necklace in perfect condition.” He smiled up at Shiro. “I’ll make sure it gets back to Tiffany’s safely.”  
  
 _Courting necklace_. Of course he’d known the design was popular for that use. He just hadn’t been thinking of that when he’d chosen it to adorn Lance’s graceful, unclaimed neck. Had he? Shiro licked his lips. “What if you realize you may have offered such a token unwittingly?”  
  
“In that case, I would examine the reasons my subconscious mind might have compelled me to do that, before arriving at any other decisions.”  
  
Shiro and Garrett silently considered one another across the desk.  
  
“If you ignore a quandary it doesn’t actually go away, sir,” Garrett said finally.  
  
“You’re quite right.” Shiro collected his collateral and messages. “Thank you, Mister Garrett.”  
  
“I’m glad to be of assistance.”  
  
Shiro left the hotel resolving to find a way to handle this quandary he found himself in with Lance. There had to be a way to make this right.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“This way serah.”  
  
Keith followed the blonde chick off the staircase landing into a rooftop flower garden. The blonde chick, who had been introduced to him simply as “Leif’s daughter” (maybe he was going to meet Leif at some point?) led him to a patio table bedecked with more flowers and a glossy little menu with everything listed in fancy serif fonts.  
  
“You may help yourself to anything on the menu,” Leif’s daughter said as she pulled out a patio chair for him. “Compliments of the house. Moxilous will take your order shortly. Your friend will be joining you soon.”  
  
“Thanks.” Keith took the offered seat. It had floofy striped cushions on it, like you’d expect to see at a garden party.   
  
“You’re welcome.” Off she went, somehow making bustling look languid. She was one of those service people who must have a time machine, because they never looked like they were in a hurry yet they always managed to get all their shit done efficiently.  
  
Keith felt severely under-dressed in one of Hunk’s nicer shirts – enormous on him – over the high school sweat pants and his own Sk8-Hi’s he’d been wearing the night before. There were several other patio tables on the roof, set a respectable distance apart considering the abbreviated size of the venue. Two of those tables had occupants who were too busy taking pictures of their food to pay much mind to Keith’s arrival, but that might not last.  
  
Keith put the menu up in front of his face. The rooftop lounge served at least six different kinds of wine spritzers, which he wasn’t sure if he could get away with ordering. He was not quite twenty-one, not that his age had stopped him in the past. It might here. There were also ices, finger sandwiches, fruit salads and frou-frou cookies.  
  
The cookies actually looked pretty good.  
  
“Good day, serah. Have you decided, or do you need a few moments?”  
  
Keith looked up into the serene face of a beta built like a bouncer. He was dressed very smartly in shirt sleeves, tie and apron, with a long red braid dangling over one giant shoulder. This must be Moxilous.  
  
“Um, I’ll have the macarons.”  
  
“Excellent choice, serah.” Moxilous wrote on his order taking pad, tiny in his enormous hand. “And to drink?”  
  
“A watermelon spritzer.”  
  
“Very good.” Scribble scribble. “With or without Grenache Rosé?”  
  
A long pause ensued. Maybe it was worth a shot.  
  
“With?”  
  
“I’ll need to see your ID.”  
  
Damn it.  
  
“He’s with me.” Lance strode up to the table looking ready for tea and tennis in skinny pants of some kind of plaid in shades of blue, red and yellow, and a cardigan twin-set in a complementary shade of blue. “I’ll have whatever he’s having.”  
  
“Very well, serah. I’ll be back momentarily with your orders. Enjoy your afternoon.”  
  
“Thanks Moxie.”  
  
Moxilous raised one ginger eyebrow at the nickname but pulled out a chair for Lance and then continued on his way.  
  
“Wow.” Keith gave Lance a once-over as he sat down next to him. “You make that look good. I don’t even want to punch you and steal your lunch money.”  
  
Lance laughed. “Supposedly this is my ancestral clan’s actual hunting tartan.” He stretched one long leg out from under the table.  
  
“Well, la-dee-dah.”  
  
“I have a feeling I’m breaking some kind of etiquette rule plastering it across my ass like this, though.”  
  
“Punk rock.” Keith put up his fist for a bump and Lance pounded it.  
  
Moxilous brought them meringue sandwich cookies filled with buttercream and tall glasses of sweet pink fizz that delivered a mild alcoholic buzz.  
  
“So,” Lance said as soon as Moxilous was out of earshot, “you and Hunk, huh?”  
  
“Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t encourage that.”  
  
“He’s a good guy.” Lance smiled moodily at the table cloth.  
  
“Yeah, he is.” Keith sipped his drink and watched Lance. “So, thanks.”  
  
Lance looked up, saw the sincerity on Keith’s face and beamed. “Yeah, no sweat.”  
  
“How about you? Mister Money Bags gonna be a regular?”  
  
“He offered to set me up with an apartment in New Jersey, but I don’t know if I’m gonna take it.”  
  
Lance stared off the side pensively. He was a pretty good actor when he put some focus into it, but Keith knew all his tells.  
  
“You let him pop a knot, didn’t you.”  
  
Lance sulkily bit into a cookie.  
  
“Did all my lessons to you go in one ear and out the other? You let him pop a knot and now you’ve caught feelings and it’ll chap your ass to be set up as the sidepiece one state over.”   
  
Lance could be very pragmatic when the situation called for it, but Keith knew he was a pure romantic in his not-very-well-hidden heart of hearts.  
  
“I caught the feelings before the knot, so shows what you know.”  
  
“Lance!”  
  
“It’s not like I went into this hoping to fall in love with him.”  
  
Keith sighed and sank back in his floofy chair. What’s done was done, he could only help his friend think about moving forward from here. “So, what are you gonna do? Move to New Jersey and hope he has a change of heart and decides to court?”  
  
Lance scoffed. “What are the odds of that happening?”  
  
“You never know, people do marry their secret lovers sometimes.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Lance leaned back in his own chair and gazed at the sky. “Who got that deal?”  
  
“Princess Aurora.”  
  
Lance popped his head up off the chair cushion. “The fuck?”  
  
“I’m being serious.” So many people didn’t know the down and dirty origins of their favorite fairy tales, but Keith did because Akane thought the grittier tales made more instructive bedtime stories. “When the handsome prince found the sleeping princess, he decided to keep her on the down low for a while, until he had to take the throne, then he’s like, guess I already got my queen consort, so he brought her and the pups home to his palace. Then his mom started trying to eat the queen consort and her pups.” Keith took apart a cookie to lick the buttercream.  
  
“That’s some kind of fucked up, Keith.”  
  
“So don’t marry him and just let him pamper you as his secret lover. Maybe bear him a pup or two, if he likes being a part-time dad you’ll be set for years.”   
  
Maybe, for just once in his life, Lance would take the safe road instead of risking all to follow his heart.  
  
“If Hunk offered to support you in style as his secret lover so he can be free to pretend he’s single, would you go for it?”  
  
Damn Lance and his weird insightful moments that came out of nowhere.  
  
“Hell no.” Keith wanted to be Hunk’s one and only. He knew it with a sudden ferocity that felt like a jab to the solar plexus. As irrational as monogamy was, his heart didn’t give a fuck, and he had a suspicion Hunk felt the same way. “Guess I’m gonna have to look for a new line of work.”  
  
He couldn’t honestly say he was sorry about it, either. In spite of his apprehensions about how in the hell he was going to make his own money now, it felt like more of a relief.  
  
Lance raised his glass. “Cheers to sudden life-changing revelations.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro cast his gaze around to take in the hangars, runways and enormous warehouses in the aircraft manufacturing complex near Culver City, trying to imagine nothing but condos and office parks as far as the eye could see. Past the buildings nestled in the crook of the confluence of two creeks, Shiro could see the wetlands, brown and green interspersed with spikes of wildflowers. Beyond it was a sliver of blue: the estuary, just visible due to the clarity of the weather.  
  
“Bae Bae, get back here!”  
  
“Oof!” Shiro had to brace himself to keep from being knocked flat by the grey dog that jumped up to place her paws on his chest and joyfully lick as much of his chin as she could reach, tail wagging like a propeller. “I don’t believe it. You still like me!”  
  
“Yeah, I’m having trouble believing it myself.”  
  
Standing under an arch in the administration building’s exterior arcade stood Matt Holt’s alpha younger sister, Katherine. Or at least, that was her given name.  
  
“Do you still prefer Pidge?”   
  
“Yep. But you can call me Katherine.”  
  
Evidently a few years and her brother’s successful marriage to another worthy alpha had not done much to mellow her ire toward Shiro.  
  
“You’re a long way from San Francisco,” he said as he tightened his grip on his briefcase and slowly approached the arcade. He was not going to allow a five-foot, hundred and nothing teenager to intimidate him out of this meeting, no matter how terrifying she might be.  
  
“You’re a longer way from New York.” Pidge stood her ground, arms folded in an obstinate posture.   
  
As Shiro drew closer, he could see a few differences from the last time he’d faced that fearsome glare. She’d chopped off a lot of her thick hair and traded in her flouncy outfits for a fitted blazer and jeans look. The small stature, angry hazel eyes and agitated scent of neroli were all just as he recalled, however.  
  
“I have business here today, Katherine.”  
  
“Yes, I know.” She matched him step for step as he tried to pass her in the arcade. Bae Bae trotted at their heels. “You’re here to try to sell Hawkins Aircraft Company out from under Mister Hawkins.”  
  
“Does your mother work here?”   
  
It sure as hell couldn’t be Sam. He was a paleobotanist.  
  
“Ha! No, she made Supervisory Special Agent.”  
  
So Colleen was still using her special set of skills with the public sector. Good to know.   
  
“Congratulations to her, then.”  
  
“It’s me, fuckwit! I work here.”  
  
Shiro halted his stride to look down into her mad little face. “By yourself?”  
  
“I’m seventeen!” There went the hands on the hips.  
  
“You’re a high school senior!”  
  
“I graduated early with honors, which you’d know if you ever bothered to stay in contact with people!”  
  
Was this conversation for real? “Your brother broke up with me.”  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause you refused to get married like a dumbass. That didn’t mean you had to break up with our entire family, idiot.”  
  
Shiro remembered leisurely family dinners, and less leisurely events that resulted in him waiting for Matt to finish getting ready while he cooled his heels in the Holts’ living room, both novel experiences for him at the time. Pidge would frequently join him wherever he was sitting to initiate conversations on their shared interest in probability theory. As enjoyable as these dialogues were, Shiro had not thought this to be anything more than a dutiful sister taking an interest in her brother’s suitor, especially after that last blowout which resulted in Matt rushing out of the limo in tears and Pidge rushing outside to rip Shiro a new one.  
  
Come to think of it, though, Matt had not stopped accepting overtures from Shiro’s father to maintain a friendly association, so why would Pidge have refused to talk to Shiro if he had ever reached out?  
  
But he hadn’t reached out. Head spinning, he stared down at the mulish girl and the confused dog.  
  
“Why is Bae Bae here?”  
  
“Because my grandfather runs a family friendly workplace.” James Griffin leaned through the inset door to the main lobby. “Bae Bae is a member of Pidge’s family, therefore she is welcome here.”  
  
Shiro thought it more likely that the company was willing to tolerate a few harmless eccentricities in order to keep their most brilliant employees happy, but as Griffin led him up tiled stairs and down Persian-carpeted corridors, he noticed other employees walking arm-in-arm or leading children by the hand. The receptionist who nodded them into Hawkins’s private office had a sleeping baby in a playpen next to her workstation.  
  
Hawkins sat behind a desk of quartersawn oak in a room stuffed with brown leather chairs, and tufted wool carpeting underfoot. It was a room designed to make guests feel as comfortable as its primary occupant.  
  
“Thank you Jamie, you may close the door behind you,” Hawkins said to his grandson.  
  
“But– ”  
  
“It’s fine, Jamie.” Hawkins was still speaking to his grandson but his eyes were now on Shiro. “I’m confident that Mister Shirogane and I can have a civil conversation without a referee present. Isn’t that right Mister Shirogane?”  
  
Shiro bit back the sudden urge to ask Hawkins to stop using his formal name. This was not an informal situation. “Yes sir, that’s right.”  
  
Hawkins raised an eyebrow at the unnecessary honorific with which Shiro had just addressed him, but it seemed to have impressed Griffin enough that he stopped arguing and closed the door.  
  
“Well then, Mister Shirogane,” Hawkins said as he waved Shiro to take a seat, “Seeing as you have arrived before the appointed hour, I suppose now it’s my turn to ask what you would have of me.”  
  
“I have a question,” Shiro admitted as he sat back on overstuffed leather. He could hardly countenance what he was about to do, as it was giving up one of his hidden advantages, but it was driving him crazy now and he had to know.  
  
“Go on.” Hawkins looked politely interested.  
  
“Why have you not offered your employees a buyout option?”  
  
Hawkins sat up straight and severe. “I hardly think imposing paid severance upon my employees is the best way to thank them for their loyalty.”  
  
“No, I...” Shiro rubbed his forehead. “I mean, why haven’t you asked your employees to buy up your stock. Make the company employee-owned.”  
  
“This company is my legacy, entrusted to me by my own father.”   
  
Hawkins stared at something behind Shiro’s head. Shiro turned and saw that the wall directly across from the desk was covered in company group portraits dating all the way back to the founding.  
  
“It’s my job to protect them,” Hawkins continued. “They shouldn’t have to worry about such heavy decisions. That load should be on me.”  
  
It was not arrogant pride which had blinded Hawkins to the most obvious source of relief for his problems. It was conscientious pride in his role as a leader, but he was still blind nonetheless.  
  
“Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘a load shared is a load halved,’ Mister Hawkins?”  
  
Hawkins took a good long look at Shiro, who met his assessing gaze without shrinking.  
  
“What are you suggesting, Mister Shirogane?” he finally asked.  
  
“I have come to believe that you have something special, here,” Shiro replied, “and I’ve decided that I want to help you protect it. But in order to do that, you need to be willing to accept help too.”  
  
Hawkins sat back heavily in his executive chair, thunderstruck. “Go on,” he said, “I’m listening.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _“Shirogane signed an agreement to become a limited partner in Hawkins Aircraft Company. Holt’s daughter just found out in a meeting and started texting her mother about it immediately.”_  
  
Thace, an Interpol agent attached to Holt’s task force, had messaged Narti the code to let her know she needed to call him back ASAP, so she had excused herself from another boring-ass meeting to go do that. Thace and Narti had an information-sharing agreement. Well. Technically that agreement was with Narti’s employer. Narti’s real employer.  
  
“Lotor’s going to shit a brick when he hears about this.”  
  
 _“Tell your boss my favor is now paid off.”_  
  
“I’ll tell her.” Odds were good that Honerva had something else on Thace she could use to procure another favor, but that hardly mattered now.  
  
Narti figured she’d better make sure Kova’s pet passport was in order. They might be leaving sooner than anticipated. Of all Shirogane’s exes for Lotor to have propositioned, he should have never tried to put the moves on Colleen Holt’s son. The woman had a memory like a raging elephant, and enough authority to direct that anger towards slow but steady retribution.  
  
Narti strode back to the conference room at a fast clip, only to find suits spilling out into the hallway, clearly in a hurry to be elsewhere. None of those suits belonged to Lotor. She detoured into his office across the hall. No sign of him, either in the front room or the entertainment nook in the back. She stalked back to the conference room and found only Prorock shuffling paperwork into a briefcase. He looked up at her approach.  
  
“What happened in here?” she demanded.   
  
“Shirogane called to invite us all to invest in Hawkins Aircraft Company,” Prorock replied. “The way he pitched it, it sounds like we stand to gain a great deal more in the long-term than we were going to get from selling off the assets piecemeal.”  
  
Damn it. She had been hoping to mitigate the damage by delivering that news herself. “Where did Lotor go?”  
  
“He said he was going to take some air. He looked like he needed it.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance had just packed up the last of his clothes in his new wardrobe trunk when the doorbell chimed. Maybe Keith came back to hang out a while longer? Lance would welcome the company. They could open a bottle of wine, veg out on the couch and turn off their brains watching something with hot lunkheads and bad CGI. Lance couldn’t be sure of everything on Shiro’s mind, but he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t mind if he came home to discover two omegas in the living room riffing on a dumb, loud movie.  
  
It was not Keith’s grinning face and akebia scent that greeted him when he opened the door, however.  
  
“If it isn’t the blushing bride.” Lotor Manigford pushed his way in the door as soon as it was opened. “Don’t you look a treat.”  
  
“Shiro isn’t here,” Lance said as Lotor brushed right past him.  
  
“I suppose I’ll just have to wait for him then.” Lotor moseyed over toward the kitchen. “Does Shiro keep any libations in this place? I need a drink.”  
  
Maybe a drink would soften the acrid edge from this alpha’s scent. Lance went to the kitchen’s wet bar and brought out a highball glass.  
  
“Scotch and soda, if you please,” Lotor said, his burning gaze steady across the bar.  
  
Lance nodded, avoiding that gaze, and set about mixing the drink.  
  
“You’re quite talented,” Lotor said as he watched Lance skillfully measure and stir. “Very talented,” he amended after he took his first sip. “I do love an omega who knows their way around a cocktail. Drink with me.”  
  
Lance poured himself a tumbler of plain seltzer water and used it to cover his nervous swallow.  
  
“Virgin for the virgin, is it?” Lotor laughed at his own joke. “Oh, but here I go making assumptions. After all, Shiro has had you all to himself in here for days. Do you know he and I share everything? Or we used to, before you came around.”  
  
Lance gauged the distance between the kitchen and various doors within his line of sight. “I don’t understand,” he hedged.  
  
“What’s not to understand?” Lotor set his empty highball glass on the bar with a thud. “I could get Shiro to do anything, date anyone and oh, he’s a stubborn creature so let me tell you that is no easy task. I earn my spoils from him.”  
  
Lotor started to pace in front of the bar like a cheetah.   
  
“All of the sudden he can’t come to dinner because he’s got a date with you. He’s arranging meetings behind my back and now he’s jettisoning a takeover he would have never considered letting get away before you, so forgive me for assuming again, but I have to come to the conclusion that the difference is you. Where in the bloody hell did you come from?”  
  
Lance sidled around the side of the bar, nerves on fire. He wasn’t sure he could make it back to the front door without Lotor cutting him off, but he might be able to fake the alpha out and then lock himself in the bedroom.   
  
“You know, I’ve just had a thought.” Lotor blocked the side of the bar Lance had been edging toward. “Maybe if he shared you, things would go back to normal.”  
  
Bedroom was out, then. Heart pounding, Lance sprinted out the other side of the bar and broke for the front door. He made it into the foyer before Lotor took him down like a gazelle.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro tried the room number a second time as Kai drove him back to the hotel. Leifsdottir had assured him when the first call routed back to the front desk that Lance was still on the premises. There was still no answer. He had told Lance not to pick up the phone in the penthouse, so maybe he was taking one of Shiro’s orders seriously. For possibly the first time ever since they’d met.  
  
Or, maybe he was avoiding talking to Shiro. He felt a frown etching itself deeply onto his face.  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Yes Kai.”  
  
“Isn’t that Mister Manigford’s car at the curb?”  
  
There indeed was the Jaguar, parked with one rear wheel on the sidewalk. Son of a bitch. He was probably here to yell at Shiro. Without Shiro there, he might try to vent his spleen on Lance, and Lance was not the sort of person to just stand there and take it.  
  
“Stop the car, I’ll get out here.”  
  
“As you like, sir.”  
  
Shiro hurried into the lobby. No sign of Lotor, and he would be hard to miss, even in the daytime crowd. Shiro went to the elevator and broke in front of Dayak, waiting alone this time.  
  
“I beg your pardon!”  
  
“Lady Dayak, cut it out with the offended dowager business.”  
  
She gasped.  
  
“I know how you and Mister Dayak met.”  
  
As strange luck and convoluted social circles would have it, Mister Dayak had been one of his father’s international contract lawyers, a gregarious man Shiro would have been happy to keep on his own payroll if not for his sudden death from a stroke. He had loved telling stories nearly to rival Shinji, except that Mozak Dayak really only had one story, which he told to anyone who would listen every time he had a little too much to drink (and sometimes even when he hadn’t). It was the story about how he got the prettiest Vegas showgirl he’d ever seen to marry him in the Star Trek wedding chapel the very night they met.  
  
“Well I suppose it can’t top your meet cute, but that doesn’t excuse you from cutting in line.”  
  
“I’m worried about my ome- my guest,” Shiro admitted.  
  
“What on earth could possibly happen to him in the penthouse?”  
  
The elevator doors opened. Regris looked back and forth between the two alphas facing off in the hallway.   
  
“Going up?”  
  
“Regris, did you take Lotor Manigford up to the penthouse floor today?”  
  
“Yes sir, a little over five minutes ago.”  
  
“Go on,” Dayak said to Shiro. “That alpha’s reputation precedes him.”  
  
“Thank you,” Shiro breathed, hustling aboard the elevator.  
  
“I honestly cannot fathom how you remain friends with a man who treats your dating pool like his own personal brothel,” Dayak went on as the doors closed.  
  
“I beg your pardon?!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance landed on his side and immediately squirmed to push himself up off the floor, but Lotor was heavy and his hands were everywhere.   
  
“Get off me!”   
  
Lance slapped at the hands trying to get into his clothes. Lotor made the mistake of putting a hand over his mouth to try to muzzle him and Lance didn’t hesitate to bite him.  
  
“You little knot slut!”   
  
Lotor backhanded him. Lance’s head rang with the blow but he kept pushing and kicking for all he was worth and then suddenly Lotor wasn’t on top of him anymore.  
  
Lance sat up to the sight of two enraged alphas grappling and snarling in the doorway.  
  
“I’ve been at your side since school days, Shiro!” Lotor’s eyes were wild. “You would throw me over for a brokerage bride after all we’ve done together?”  
  
“You’ve been abusing my good nature for years.” Shiro’s eyebrows were creased in anger. “Feeding off me like a remora, and now this?”  
  
“Oh, because you’re the shark?” Lotor’s laugh crackled with mania.  
  
“You’ve gone too far.”   
  
Lance knew that look on Shiro’s face, even after just a few short days. That look meant Shiro’s last thread of control was about to snap. Astoundingly, Lotor, who had known Shiro for years, did not recognize it for the warning it was.  
  
“I hadn’t actually gotten that far yet, old chum. Let’s you and I test this omega’s limits together, shall we?”  
  
With a roar, Shiro threw a cross that Lotor was completely unguarded for. Lotor’s head snapped back like a broken Bratz doll, hair flying everywhere. Shiro picked him up and bodily threw him across the threshold.  
  
“I hereby relieve you of your duties as my attorney,” he said, and slammed the door.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“If he’s causing a disturbance I’ll have to tell the management,” the elevator attendant said as he let Narti off on the penthouse floor.  
  
“I’ll deal with it,” Narti told him as she stalked off down the hall. If he really had gotten into a skirmish with Shirogane over the Hawkins deal, or god forbid, that omega, then the jig was up. Holt would find some way to use it as a pretext for further action.  
  
She found Lotor collapsed in a heap right outside the penthouse door. The steady rise and fall of his chest told her he was not dead, merely unconscious, but she knelt and checked his pulse and pupils to be on the safe side. On closer examination, nothing appeared to be broken, not even his jaw, which was miraculous as the blossoming purple bruise showed that Shirogane had gotten in a good one. He was just out cold, and probably would be for a while.  
  
“Convenient.”  
  
She pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and hit speed dial.  
  
Acxa picked up after the first ring. _“What?”_  
  
“Get the plane ready and get my cat. We’re going ahead with extraction.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the final chapter while playing "It Must Have Been Love" on repeat.


	7. It Must Have Been Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you need to go through a dark night of the soul to get to that beautiful morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to go ahead and post the last chapter since everybody is probably going to be busy binging the show tomorrow (including yours truly).
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who kudoed and enjoyed! Shout out to Xochitl, SpaceSquirrelQueen, shiro gone yee, and Hyarou, and everybody who read this little fic I started on a 'let's see where this goes' moment. I love you guys!

“Hold it right there.”  
  
Shiro pressed a cold compress of ice wrapped in a bar towel against Lance’s tender cheek.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
After he’d dumped Lotor out into the hall, Shiro had scooped Lance up off the floor and gently placed him on the couch, then gone to the wet bar and started putting together the compress.  
  
“I can’t accept your thanks,” Shiro said, “since this is kind of my fault.”  
  
“How is a megalomaniac’s inability to understand the word ‘no’ your fault?”   
  
The cold ice felt good on Lance’s hot cheek as he clutched it there.   
  
“He’s been taking advantage of me for years and I’ve been ignoring it because I thought we were both getting something out of the association.” Shiro perched on the couch by Lance’s side. “It never occurred to me that he might be taking advantage of people around me too, and it should have. I probably owe all my exes dating back to high school an apology.”  
  
“He said you let a business deal get away.” Maybe it was none of Lance’s business, but he’d just had to deal with a rampaging alpha over it so he wanted to know anyway.  
  
“I altered the terms of the business deal, I didn’t let it get away.”  
  
Lance smiled, even though it pulled at his sore cheek. “Was it Mister Hawkins?”  
  
Shiro nodded as he wrapped a second bar towel around his own abraded knuckles. “I’m going into business with him.”  
  
“It’s better to throw in with people you respect.”  
  
Shiro placed his warm palm around Lance’s ice-laden hand, supporting it. “You seem to have a better instinct for who deserves my respect than I do.”  
  
“I think that’s just my instinct for certain kinds of crazy.” Lance wanted to lean into Shiro’s support, but he resisted. “Occupational hazard.”  
  
“Right.”   
  
Shiro let go of his hand and sat back, so Lance made use of that distance to sit up, tucking his legs up to get around Shiro’s broad back.  
  
“Listen, I’m already packed, so I can go ahead and leave tonight. You can adjust my rate accordingly.” Lance let the ice compress dangle in one hand.  
  
Shiro looked at him as if his stare could freeze time. “What do I have to do to make you stay?”  
  
Lance met his gaze directly. “Make me your family.”  
  
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” Shiro huffed a disbelieving laugh and looked away. “Who would want to be a member of my family?”  
  
“I would.”  
  
Shiro sat staring into his hands before he shook his head and rose from the couch. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he insisted.  
  
Lance followed Shiro with his eyes. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”  
  
Shiro returned to the couch with his billfold in his hand. “You want an explanation? How about a story. My father’s hubris directly led to my mother’s death, and then he replaced her with my stepmother barely a year afterward.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Lance ventured to place a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.  
  
Shiro kept his eyes on the bills as he counted them out. “We shouldn’t even have been up on that girder, but the press showed up to one of his construction sites while we were there and he never could resist an opportunity to show off. I was still in the hospital when he observed nōkotsu, so I lost that chance to say goodbye to her. Then he sent me off to boarding school as soon as I was medically cleared. I guess looking at me reminded him of his major fuck up. When I get back for the summer, after an entire school year in a strange country, he’s engaged and I’m expected to attend their yuino and act like I’m happy for them.” Shiro tapped the bills into a neat pile and handed them over. “I’m a bad bet, Lance.”  
  
Lance couldn’t look away from Shiro’s anguished face. “You’re not your father.”  
  
Shiro shook his head again. “You haven’t been paying attention.” He didn’t look back at Lance.  
  
That bullheaded man. “I’ve been paying better attention than you think.” Lance shoved the bills in his new bi-fold wallet without counting them and stood to retrieve his travel trunk.  
  
“What are you doing?” Shiro stood when he saw Lance trying to pull up the handle on his wardrobe so as to engage the wheels. “You’re not going down there alone.” The wheels hit the floor with a lovely clack. “Just let me call a bellhop, for fuck’s sake.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I wasn’t sure what to do about it, and that’s why I came to you, sir.”   
  
Regris didn’t look nearly as contrite about the whole debacle as Hunk thought he should look, considering he should have immediately called Hunk using the elevator’s emergency phone.  
  
“I mean, she’s been given privileges here before by Mister Shirogane and she said she had it handled.” Regris took in Hunk’s stern expression and stood up straighter. “Sir.”  
  
The right hand woman of an associate of Shiro’s had come down in the elevator carrying said associate in a fireman’s carry after an apparent kerfuffle with Shiro himself, the details of which she declined to explain to Regris. From her perspective, Hunk was sure it must have seemed handled.  
  
“I’ll feel a lot better after I’ve spoken to Mister Shirogane myself,” Hunk said, and reached for the front desk phone to do just that when it rang. The LED display said it was the penthouse. “Oh, thank goodness.” He answered.  
  
 _“Mister Garrett! I- Lance, will you just listen to me? We need a bellhop. Lance, wait!”_  
  
“I’ll be right there.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Honey, we get all kinds in here.”  
  
Ilun, the room service manager, waved off Keith’s lack of prior experience in the hotel industry. They were crammed into her small office together, her wheeled task chair jammed into the corner of her L-shaped desk, his guest chair leaned against the door jamb.  
  
“You seem like you can handle yourself, and that’s really what I need with omega room service attendants.”  
  
Most hotels had omega attendants on standby who could be called upon to serve omega guests in sudden heat situations. Ritzy hotels like the Beverly Wilshire had omega attendants as regular staff to serve omega guests whenever they insisted upon it, heat or no heat. But those omegas were rarely traveling alone, hence the manager’s interest in Keith’s street smarts.   
  
They were short staffed due to one of their omega attendants being out on maternity leave. It was a common enough issue that Ilun wasn’t opposed to hiring on one more, but she particularly perked up when she learned that Keith was a night owl. She’d mentioned that was an especially difficult shift to cover because most omega applicants either had children at home or they had worries about getting to and from the hotel at night. Neither of those things represented an insurmountable obstacle for Keith.  
  
“So, what do you say? You try us out, we try you out, everybody gets a fair shake.”  
  
Keith was under no illusions that he’d be making the hourly rate he’d grown used to as a sex worker, or that he’d be personally fulfilled by a career as an omega room service attendant, despite that he secretly enjoyed the glamor associated with travel. But at least this way he’d still be making his own money, as well as gaining experience he could actually put on a resumé. It would buy him some time to figure out the rest.  
  
“I’m in.”  
  
“Sweet! Let’s get your paperwork started.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Hunk arrived upon a scene that could have initially been described as domestic if he hadn’t been aware of certain pertinent details that led up to it. Lance and Shiro embraced awkwardly around a large wardrobe trunk standing upright between them. They both looked up as Regris opened the elevator doors. Shiro had a towel wrapped around his right hand and Lance had a bruise forming on his left cheekbone. They both looked wrecked.  
  
“I’ve just been told a visitor caused some trouble up here,” Hunk said, pausing a beat to give Lance an opportunity to correct his assumption if need be. “How can I be of assistance?”  
  
“Lance shouldn’t go downstairs by himself,” Shiro said, “in case Lotor is still hanging around.”  
  
So many suppositions confirmed in so few words.  
  
“He’s long gone,” Hunk replied, “but rest assured we will see to it that Lance doesn’t go anywhere by himself tonight.”  
  
“Lance is standing right here,” Lance said, but he allowed Hunk to pick up his wardrobe and carry it aboard the elevator.  
  
Lance and Shiro maintained eye contact as Regris operated the switches to close the doors and take them down to the lobby. Both of them looked like they didn’t want Lance to go, yet neither of them said a word to stop it. Hunk was going to find out what that was about but he’d have to wait until they could get some privacy first.  
  
“I’m taking you home,” Hunk said as soon as the elevator was moving.  
  
“You don’t have to do that.” Lance sounded very subdued, for Lance.   
  
“Yes I do. I’m taking Keith back over there, which I don’t mind telling you I’m not wild about, but he insisted on spending one last night in the place.” Hunk got an idea. “I’ll take you both out for pancakes first.”  
  
“Then I’ll be intruding on your date,” Lance sighed dolefully.  
  
“No you won’t.” Keith had been resisting the idea of letting Hunk pay for his dinner on what was supposed to be his ‘last night as a free man’ but once he saw Lance standing there looking so mopey he would surely change his mind. “Trust me.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“So, he figured out what you do for a living and tried to help himself?”  
  
Keith was being unusually soft in the backseat of Hunk’s car with Lance, both of them turned in the seats to face one another, knees touching around the center armrest. Lance was grateful for it.  
  
“No, he thinks I’m a mail order bride.”  
  
Keith threw back his head and laughed his smart little ass off.  
  
“Keith!” Hunk scolded like a maiden aunt from the driver’s seat, and now Lance was laughing through tears.  
  
“He still tried to help himself though,” he said. “He thinks Shiro’s house is his house in every sense of the word.”  
  
“What a dick,” said Keith.  
  
“Regris told me Shiro knocked his block off,” said Hunk.  
  
“He sure did.” Lance smiled and tasted salt water. “And he thinks he’d be a bad mate.”  
  
“Sometimes people’s fears about the harm they could inflict on others are the hardest to overcome,” Hunk said thoughtfully.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“...and that’s why I wanted to say that I am deeply sorry for any harm I may have caused you.”  
  
With nothing but the four opulent walls reminding him of what was now absent in his life, Shiro had felt compelled to make good on his declaration of apologizing to his exes. Starting with the most recent.  
  
 _“I do appreciate the thought, Shiro.”_ Adam had been surprised to get his call, but hadn’t refused it. _“You’ll be happy to know that I warned him if he ever tried to approach me it would be Laika’s mouth around his nether regions, not mine.”_  
  
Shiro laughed in relief. Laika was Adam’s Chow Chow, treated by Adam as a beloved pet but expertly trained as a guard dog. That threat hadn’t been idle.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Is the stowaway secured?”  
  
Narti had towed the boss’s son aboard in an extra large soft-sided spinner bag, then deposited him on the bed in the aft of the large business jet, the purchase of which had been a point of braggadocio for Lotor but an absolute necessity for Narti and Acxa. They’d have never gotten him on an overseas first class flight without triggering an alert to the Feds, but sneaking him aboard a long-range private jet was fairly simple. They both had private pilot licenses, so they were able to register a flight plan with themselves as the crew.  
  
Hopefully Colleen Holt wasn’t paying as close attention to Mrs. Manigford’s comings and goings as she was to the mister’s.  
  
“He’s secured,” Narti replied. “He’ll probably need your special touch in another hour or two.”  
  
Acxa rolled her eyes. “Yeah I’ll dose him up when we’re en route.”  
  
Poor Acxa. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with the package. Narti supposed she couldn’t blame her, much. He was handsome as the devil, and could be nearly as charming when he felt like it. They’d have to keep him sedated until they were safely on their way and it was too late for him to effectively cause more trouble. They’d pick up Herreh before the final leg, and then Acxa could have the dubious privilege of babysitting Lotor for the rest of the trip.  
  
She could have it, and keep it. Narti didn’t want this assignment ever again if she could possibly help it. She had the highest respect for Honerva, but there was only so far she was willing to go for that, and she had reached her limit.  
  
“Did you get Kova?”  
  
“Her carrier’s in the cockpit. Wasn’t sure where you’d want to secure it so I left that for you.”  
  
Narti brushed past Acxa to peek into the cockpit. One of the pilot seats held a cat carrier from which a pair of yellow eyes shone out. The blue Burmese let out a mrowl at the sight of her human.  
  
Narti smiled. “Thanks.”  
  
“No problem. I know how you feel about that cat.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance sat back in the padded vinyl diner booth with his hot chocolate, content to watch Keith and Hunk interact. Hunk had ordered Belgian waffles covered in berries and whipped cream and Keith had ordered pancakes covered in icing and sprinkles, and both were adamant that their food was the best. So now they were taste testing each other’s dishes for proof.  
  
“Nope, it’s no good,” said Hunk, putting down his fork. “We’re both too heavily biased. Lance, you’ll have to be the tie breaker.”  
  
“Oh, no.” Lance had ordered a short stack with a side of bacon and barely made a dent in it. His appetite was nonexistent. “You’re not getting me involved in this.”  
  
They both looked so hangdog when he said that. Lance couldn’t hold out against those pouts.  
  
“Fine, but I make no promises that I’ll actually be able to break this tie.”  
  
He wasn’t sure he was capable of tasting a difference when everything tasted as bland as the prospect of a future without true love in it. He wondered how his mother had dealt with this. For the first time he could appreciate just how difficult it must have been for her to make the choices she'd made and then find a way to continue on after.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
 _“I think he drugged my drink.”_ An umber hand appeared on Matt’s shoulder and squeezed, reminding Shiro again that Matt’s alpha was in the room with him and witnessing this video chat. _“But Mom never found enough evidence to prove it was him. He’d been hitting on me all night at the party even after I told him I wasn’t interested. I was lucky I was in a locked restroom when it started to take effect. I hid out in there until my friends came looking for me.”_  
  
“I’m so sorry.” Mortification didn’t even begin to describe what Shiro felt right at that moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
 _“I didn’t tell anyone.”_ That little line of trouble that used to so charm Shiro appeared in Matt’s brow. _“Not at first. I know I should have, but I was afraid my parents would restrict my privileges again.”_  
  
It was no small thing for an unclaimed omega to be permitted to travel outside the home without some form of monitor, be it active in the form of a chaperone or passive in the form of tracking jewelry. The only unbonded omegas who routinely had such privileges without needing permission from a guardian were omegas on their own, like Lance, and they gave up a lot of their safety in the bargain.  
  
“It wasn’t your fault.”   
  
It suddenly seemed absurd to Shiro that this had been an issue to begin with, Matt losing his freedom to leave the house at will all because of a decision imposed on him by a malignant outside party, while his baby sister was free to move to an entirely different city on her own just by dint of being an alpha. That omegas like Lance couldn’t enjoy the same expectation of safety in the public sphere that Shiro himself enjoyed.   
  
“I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am.”  
  
 _“You didn’t know.”_ Matt smiled. He’d always had such a sweet smile. _“For everything else, I forgave you long ago.”_  
  
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”  
  
 _“That isn’t what forgiveness is about, Shiro.”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I hope you can forgive me for waiting so long to tell you.”  
  
Hunk had driven them home and helped them carry Lance’s wardrobe up the stairs after bribing Morvok. Hunk and Keith were kissing goodnight out on the fire escape while Lance stayed inside for a long overdue conversation. Hunk was going to add Keith to his cell phone plan, so he didn’t need to mind his data so stringently anymore and graciously offered to let Lance use his phone for this call. He sat on the bed, the only light in the room coming from the open bathroom door and the phone in his hands.   
  
Darrell Stoker’s narrow face was solemn behind his oval frame glasses in the video chat window on Keith’s phone. _“I wish you had contacted me earlier so that I could have helped you. Just tell me why?”_  
  
Lance let out his held breath. “At first I was convinced it would be wrong to lay that on you after everything you did for me. But eventually I realized I was just having trouble accepting it myself.” Talking about it meant he had to face it, and wonder if things could have been different if he’d just left a few months earlier. So many ifs, no clear answers. “What was he even doing there?”  
  
 _“You don’t ever need to hesitate to tell me bad news Lance, I won’t blame the messenger. As for what your dad was doing in that alley, I will definitely get to the bottom of it.”_  
  
Lance gave Darrell the information he’d pulled together on how to locate Charles McClain’s cremains at the L.A. County coroner’s office. Darrell still had four months before his friend would be interred in Boyle Heights if nobody claimed him. The beta assured Lance that he knew how to file a petition for a court order to have the cremains released to him, along with the bone fragments that had been set aside for CODIS and that might now be used to prove Lance’s paternity.   
  
Lance’s father had been killed in a location known for drug deals and other vice activity. It was, irony of ironies, a place that Lance himself walked past many times coming to and from the boulevard to ply his own trade. Nobody seemed to know for sure what had happened and the authorities didn’t seem all that interested in finding out, but when Darrell promised he would look into it personally, Lance believed him.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
After contacting every ex who was quickly findable and would also give him the time of day, Shiro decided to stop for a dinner break. Only, the prospect of eating alone at the table where he’d once licked brie and cherry compote off Lance’s stomach was depressing as hell, so he went downstairs to the lobby side lounge.  
  
Sitting alone at the bar also boded unhappiness, as it would only remind him of seeing Lance dressed up for the first time, a long, cool omega in black. Against the wall under the windows stood a line of tables with couches and cozy chairs surrounding them. This seemed a better option than going to the patio side lounge, where that piano sat waiting to trigger his sense memory. Shiro went over to a table, dropped into a cozy chair and flagged a waiter.  
  
“One, sir?” The waiter held a small stack of laminated menus in his arms.  
  
“Two, Antok darling.” Nanette Dayak swept up in a cloud of Chanel No. 19. “Bring me my usual.” She alighted on a plush couch and got a good look at Shiro’s face when Antok lit the candle on the table. “Better make that a double.”  
  
“Yes ma’am.” Antok handed over two menus.  
  
“I’m old enough to order my own drinks, Lady Dayak,” Shiro said after the waiter went back to the bar. He felt cross as a toddler.  
  
“You look like you could use something a little stiffer than your usual glass of wine, dear.”  
  
Stiffer. Lance wouldn’t have been able to resist making a dick pun. Shiro chuckled. It hurt his chest. Dayak simply watched him without comment.  
  
“I’m bad company tonight,” he warned her.  
  
“I’m aware,” she replied, “but I don’t give a horse’s patoot. You owe me a favor and besides, I think I can help you.”  
  
“Help me do what?”  
  
“Help you pull your head out of your ass, of course.”  
  
“Two Sazeracs.” Antok set a cut-glass tumbler on the table before each of them. “Have you decided, or do you need a moment?”  
  
“New York sirloin, medium rare.” Shiro tossed his menu to the table. “With the truffle fries.”  
  
“How very manly.” Dayak picked up Shiro’s menu and handed it to Antok along with her own. “I’ll have the filet mignon, rare, with the hand-cut fries.”  
  
“Very good sir and madame.” Antok took their menus and their orders and left them alone to appreciate their drinks and grudgingly accept each other’s company.  
  
Shiro had never tasted a Sazerac cocktail before. He didn’t often imbibe spirits, but when he did he usually took them neat. The Sazerac was sweet, bitter, herbal and spicy, its high alcohol content blunting the sharper edges of Shiro’s mood within moments as the deceptive sweetness encouraged deeper drinking than a sipping whiskey would have done. He took another swallow and licked his lips.  
  
“Lady Dayak, I have to give it up to you. You have good taste in alcoholic beverages.”  
  
“My dear, I have good taste in many things.” Dayak lounged on the couch like a duchess. “Isn’t it exquisite how the combination of ingredients that seem like they would clash with each other instead come together in such lovely harmony?”  
  
Shiro observed Dayak over the rim of his glass. She wasn’t trying to be all that subtle, so neither would he.  
  
“I’m surprised to hear you speak this way, considering your reaction five nights ago.”  
  
“How was I to know his true potential based on that first impression?” Dayak took to her cocktail even less gingerly than Shiro, but it didn’t seem to be quelling her sass in the slightest. “Really Shiro, you couldn’t have popped into a Target on your way to the hotel?”  
  
Shiro laughed into his drink. “I don’t know if he would have agreed to an outfit change that first night. I was lucky to get the overcoat on him.” Lucky in so many ways he hadn’t realized at the time.  
  
“Headstrong, is he?”  
  
Shiro nodded. “Very.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Shiro looked up, eyebrows raised.  
  
“He’ll need to be, if he’s to go toe-to-toe with you on a regular basis.”  
  
“That won’t be happening.” Shiro set his half-emptied glass down on the table. “He refused my offer.”  
  
Dayak took another drink. “And what, pray tell, did you offer that met with such a reaction?”  
  
“I offered to set him up in comfort in a penthouse on the Hudson River.”  
  
Now Dayak lowered her drink. “You must be joking.”  
  
Shiro glared at her. “There is a huge Cuban expat community there, the largest one outside of Miami.”  
  
“I don’t doubt you did your research in selecting that penthouse.” Dayak met him glare for glare. “What I doubt is your judgment in electing not to simply take him home with you. Surely your brownstone is large enough for two people?”  
  
“I promised myself years ago that I would never become as terrible a husband and father as my own father was.”  
  
“So, don’t become terrible.” Dayak sighed tersely. “Honestly, Shiro. Not everyone turns out like their parents. If I had followed my father’s example, I would have taken over the farm and married the neighbor boy instead of my sweet Mozak. You can keep your promise without giving up the option of becoming a husband and father yourself.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You just wanted to stay here tonight to take this thing for a test drive,” Lance joked as Keith used his phone to cycle through the color spectrum available on the smart light above them.  
  
“Not really.” Keith finally settled on purple and then started shuffling through the cloud looking for ambient music. “Hunk’s going to take it down and replace it with a standard fixture tomorrow, so that I can have this in my room at his house. I guess I just wanted to say goodbye to this place. It may be a dump, but it’s been my home for a while.”  
  
They were cuddled up together on the double bed, the last time they’d probably ever share a bed now that Keith was officially courting. Most of Keith’s belongings had already been packed with Lance’s help, except for his bedding which would wait for the morning on account of they were still using it.   
  
Keith decided on Vangelis’s score for Blade Runner. Gentle synths hummed and blooped, an aural blanket drifting over the two omegas snuggled down under the covers.  
  
“What will you do now?” Keith’s voice softened. “Where will you go?”  
  
“I don’t know yet.” Lance turned his head on the pillow to view Keith’s partial profile under the purple glow. “The apartment is paid up through the end of the month and I’ve got enough to see me through for longer than that, so I’ll have some time to figure it out.”   
  
Shiro, much to Lance’s amazement, had not docked him for the last night on their contract as Lance himself had suggested he should, and as he knew the Shiro he’d started the week with would have done. He’d even factored in that Lance had spent most of that first payment on the clothes that were negotiated as an extra perk. The full amount they’d agreed upon that very first improbable day was all there, tucked safely in Lance’s wallet.  
  
Keith shifted under the covers to face Lance fully. “Don’t you dare go anywhere without saying goodbye.” His eyes were dark as tumbled amethyst in the dimmed room.  
  
Lance knew how Keith felt about people making sudden exits from his life. Lance had left his own family in Cuba without a word of warning, knowing that he’d be stopped if he dared tell a soul. He’d often worried about what disarray he might have left behind. He couldn’t do that to Keith.   
  
“I promise.”  
  
They chirruped sweet comfort to each other, nuzzling chastely and sharing their warmth through the long night.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro had contacted as many people as could be considered reasonable without resorting to a private investigator, which seemed like it would be a breach of privacy too far. He tossed around the idea of sending apology fruit baskets to the exes who refused his calls, gave that up as too intrusive and decided he’d just have to let it be.  
  
Now Shiro stood in the doorway of the penthouse balcony, staring out at the night lights of Los Angeles, living in the familiar fear of falling and letting it just wash over him. Somewhere out there Lance was doing... what? Without thought, Shiro’s feet took him all the way to the balustrade, as if this could somehow get him closer to wherever Lance was now.   
  
He leaned on the support column that Lance had hoisted himself up on without a moment’s trepidation, peering down at the glimmer of street life and wishing he could pick out just one pair of blue eyes looking back up at him. He had to wonder now if it was not Manon’s fate for Lance he’d been trying to avert when he made Lance that offer, but Des Grieux’s fate for himself.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“They just touched down in New Jersey to refuel and pick up a third pilot.” Special Agent Krik swiveled his task chair to meet eyes with his supervisor. “Want me to send in a team?”  
  
“We don’t have enough to detain yet.” Colleen Holt stepped up behind Krik to look over his shoulder at his computer screen. “Keep an eye on their trajectory, so that at least we know where he winds up. You can go ahead and initiate civil seizure of his assets in Los Angeles. I suspect we’ll hit pay dirt there.” She smiled grimly. “I doubt his international business partners would be too pleased to discover he’s been using their money to support his gambling habit.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance poured sweet coffee from the greca into two red coffee mugs, while Keith stirred creamy rice cereal on the stove. Keith had been subsisting on 3-in-1 instant stuff before Lance moved in, and Lance had been eating convenience store mystery wads for breakfast. They had developed a highly functional semi-platonic partnership between the two of them.   
  
Now Keith would have Hunk to make him coffee when he got up, and Lance would have... well, he wasn’t really sure yet. The apartment was going to feel barren without Keith’s live wire energy filling it up. Maybe after Darrell rolled into town he’d ask if he could tag along with him back to Baltimore. He’d managed to find his footing in L.A. with little help to start, surely he could find a decent place in Baltimore starting off with the help of someone who was actually interested in his welfare.   
  
“I’m gonna leave some of this stuff for you,” Keith said as they sat down to their last breakfast together at the tiny dinette set. “You can leave it for the next tenant if you want to, it’s okay.”  
  
Lance smiled around a mouthful of cinnamon-sugared hot cereal. “Thanks Keef.”  
  
Keith grinned back, mug half-raised in that cutely awkward grip he always used. “De nada.” He took a gulp of coffee. “Hey, listen. If you want, I can ask Ilun if she needs another omega room service attendant. Hunk said he could request a work visa for you, and Coran told him he’s allowed to have another omega as a roommate in his apartment.”  
  
“Thanks, man.” Lance felt a little warm glow at Keith’s offer, Hunk’s thoughtfulness and Coran’s generosity. The idea of staying alone in the apartment for longer than the paid-up month felt like a succession of empty days awaiting him. “I’ll let you guys know once I figure my shit out. I promise I won’t take too long.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
They finished their breakfast together, enjoying it for what it was: a sweet moment in time that was about to slip away.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro stood over the couch with his cup of coffee, waffling over whether to take the pashmina blanket with him. He didn’t think he could bear to have the memento right in front of him without the person it reminded him of there too, but neither did he like the thought of someone else using that blanket. It still smelled strongly of ginger lilies, even though Lance had hand-washed it in the bathroom sink.  
  
“Mister Shirogane.” The day bellhop, a handsome kid named Vince, hesitantly stepped forward. He could probably tell Shiro was having a moment. “Your luggage has been brought down and handed over to your driver, sir.”  
  
“Thank you, Vince.” Shiro would have to remember to tip him well before he left. He’d been too easily distracted all morning, of little help to the staff trying to get him ready for his flight home. He took the blanket with him as he followed Vince to the elevator.  
  
Once again, Tsuyoshi Garrett stood behind the front desk, this time alongside the familiar freckled face of Ina Leifsdottir and another young woman, an attractive brunette alpha in half-moon glasses with a brisk scent like coffee beans.  
  
“Ready to hold down the fort, Nadia?” Garrett was saying as Shiro approached the desk.  
  
“You can count on me, boss!”  
  
“Mister Shirogane,” Garrett greeted him when he reached the desk. “Checking out?”  
  
“Yes, I am.” Shiro placed the folded blanket on the curved desktop. “If you would please add this to my bill, I would be most grateful.”  
  
“Of course.”   
  
Garrett gave Leifsdottir and Nadia instructions by some kind of manager shorthand and the three of them adroitly saw to settling Shiro’s hotel charges.  
  
“Are there any messages left for me?” Shiro asked as he received the receipt hard copy from Garrett’s own hands. He wasn’t really expecting a message, but he could still hope.  
  
Garrett stared at him for a long moment, as if taking his measure. “No sir,” he finally said slowly, “but if you would like to hand deliver a message, I would be more than happy to assist you with that.”  
  
Shiro felt like a man who’d just been offered hot cocoa after a long trek in the snow. “You can do that?”  
  
“It’s right on my way.” Garrett’s smile was like a sunbeam. “But may I be so bold as to make a suggestion first?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Do I look okay?”  
  
Keith fussed in front of the full length mirror on the bathroom door. He looked fairly low key, for Keith, in his skinny jeans, red and yellow t-shirt, black hoodie and high-tops.  
  
“Yeah, you look fine.” Lance sat on the stripped-down bed, also dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He was going to have to hit the Goodwill later for some bedding if he really wanted to stay in the room for the rest of the month. “You know Hunk won’t care anyway, to him you’re gorgeous even in that goofy nyan sleep shirt.”  
  
“I’m not worried that Hunk won’t like how I’m dressed,” Keith huffed, running his hands through his hair trying to straighten it and succeeding in making it look messier. “We’re going to the courthouse to file our petition for me to be allowed to live with him as his intended. I don’t want to look...”  
  
Keith had learned the hard way that how a person dressed was no surety of safety, but they both knew that some people still hadn’t gotten the memo, and an unfortunate number of those people sought employment as bureaucrats. Lance levered himself off the bed and pulled Keith into a loose hug.   
  
“There is nothing wrong with you,” Lance said emphatically. “But if you’re really that worried about it, I’ll do your hair.”  
  
Keith chirruped. “Okay.”  
  
“Wait til you try this stuff.” Lance rummaged through his luggage for the pomade he’d found on his epic shopping day. “I bet it’ll work even better on your hair than it does on mine.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The fuchsia-haired shopgirl carefully wrapped Shiro’s purchase in a bag with the store’s famous logo on it. “Good luck, sir,” she said, grinning in vicarious delight.  
  
“Thank you,” Shiro replied, taking the bag from her hands. “I’m going to need it.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“That’s funny.” Keith stared down at his phone with a curious expression on his face.  
  
“What’s that?”   
  
Lance made some finishing touches on Keith’s hair, separating a few pieces to frame his fine features. He was going for a gamine look. Playing with Keith’s hair was more fun than playing with Glitter Hair Barbie, and he would honestly miss doing this.   
  
Maybe Lance could use the unexpected windfall from the extra money Shiro gave him to pursue a beautician’s license, if he could just get his residency status cleared up. Lots of people hired omega beauticians, under the assumption that omegas had the inside track on that stuff. They weren’t entirely wrong, but really anybody could pick up those beauty tips if they cared to pay attention.  
  
“Hunk said he’s almost here and I should watch for him out on the fire escape, but we’d already agreed to meet up at the door by the ice machine.”  
  
Lance smiled. “Maybe he wants to recite sonnets to you.”  
  
“I guess that’s romantic, but it’s gonna be a bitch getting my stuff down that way.”  
  
It did strike Lance as kind of odd, after he’d had entire conversations with Hunk about how Keith wasn’t impressed by the traditional romantic gestures.  
  
Not to the degree Lance was, anyway.  
  
They carried their conversation over to the window. Keith opened it, letting in sunshine, smog and the sound of classical music. It was really loud, and getting closer?  
  
“That’s not something you hear in this neighborhood every day.” Keith leaned out over the sill.  
  
♬ “Ave Maria, gratia plena!” ♬  
  
“I know that voice.” Lance shoved himself in the open window beside Keith. “Where have I heard that voice before?”  
  
Down on the street below, an orange Subaru rolled up to the curb. Hanging out of its sunroof was a silver-haired figure as familiar as the voice coming out of him, bravely trying to compete with the instrumental track rippling up out of the crossover’s premium audio system.  
  
♬ “...benedicta tu in mulieribus!” ♬  
  
“Oh...” Lance felt light in his whole body. “Oh my...”  
  
♬ “Sancta Maria! Maria!” ♬  
  
“You better not faint while you’re halfway out the window,” Keith said, grabbing onto a belt loop on the back of Lance’s jeans for good measure.  
  
Down in the car, Lance could see Hunk grinning his face off in the driver’s seat. Shiro sang until the final Amen rang through the air. He had a strong trained voice, unsurprising given his background and love of music.  
  
No, what Lance was surprised about, thrillingly shocked, was his presence on Lance’s own doorstep.  
  
“Lance!” Shiro called out, “I’m coming up!” He disappeared back through the sunroof and reappeared out of the passenger’s side of the vehicle.  
  
“You’re... are you sure?”  
  
Keith let go of Lance’s belt loop and elbowed him. “He said he’s coming up,” he hissed, “why are you asking if he’s sure?”  
  
“He’s scared of heights,” Lance hissed back.  
  
“Guess he’s got some game,” Keith said. “Anybody can roll up singing out of a car window, but it takes balls to climb that fire escape on a good day, much less when you’re scared of heights.”  
  
“I’m going down.”  
  
“You’re gonna pop the magic bubble,” Keith warned him.  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
The moment was already damn magical, to Lance’s mind. He climbed out of the window and shimmied down the first flight of the fire escape. Shiro was already waiting for him on the landing, looking a little green, but miraculously handsome in one of his typical well-tailored suits, and the simple fact that he was _there_.  
  
“Your fire escape is terrifying,” he said.  
  
“Then why didn’t you wait for me to come down?” Lance replied on a tearful laugh.   
  
“Because I love you.” Shiro hugged the side of the building as he reached for Lance. “Lance, I love you.”  
  
“I love you too, you impossible man.”  
  
Then they were in each other’s arms and kissing and it was everything Lance thought he’d never have again. He held on tight, breathing in Shiro’s warm, woody scent, feeling the softness of his lips, and the brawniness of his arms and shoulders under that suit jacket, the solid proof under his hands that he was there. It seemed as if the universe agreed that the magic was still very much present in this moment, because Lance could hear the apotheosis of Tchaikovsky’s _Sleeping Beauty_ in his head.  
  
Or no, that wasn’t in his head. That was definitely in the realm of reality. Down on the street, the limousine had pulled up behind the Subaru, which Hunk had apparently secured and left at some point while Lance and Shiro had been too preoccupied with each other’s lips to notice. The music was pouring out of the limo’s open windows. Kai waved up at them from the limo’s driver seat. Lance waved back.  
  
“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Shiro said. “He just thinks it’s... not that... you know what? I have something I need to ask you.”  
  
“What?”   
  
If he asked Lance to move to the Hudson penthouse again, Lance wasn’t sure he had the strength of will left to turn him away. Not now that he was standing before him again after Lance had been certain he’d lost him. But Shiro, one hand clutching the railing with white knuckles, bent to one knee. He reached into his suit jacket’s inner pocket and took out a Tiffany blue box, and lifted it up toward Lance. In the window behind him, Lance could see Xi watching them while munching on a banana.  
  
“Open it,” Shiro said. “I’m afraid to let go of the railing.”  
  
Lance took the box from his hand. This was not the lacquered box that Shiro had presented him with before the ballet. This was a soft dyed leather with a zip closure, made for traveling. Lance could hear his own breath whooshing out of him even over the music. With trembling fingers, he opened the box.  
  
The necklace he had worn to the ballet lay on the suede liner, carefully arranged and secured with a pass-coded bar.  
  
“Will you please do me the honor of allowing me to court you.” Shiro raised his eyes from the landing to meet Lance’s, and that had to be giving him vertigo. “I want to marry you, Lance. I want you to be my family.”  
  
Lance felt the tears wetting his cheeks, and nodded. “Mmm hmm.”  
  
Shiro smiled up at him, brilliant like a lunar perigee. “Does that mean yes?”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
Shiro knee-walked closer and Lance knelt to meet him halfway in another close embrace.  
  
“Come home with me. Please.”  
  
“Yes Shiro, I will. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore if you’re not there too.”  
  
They kissed again, soft and sweet and full of promise. They kissed until Hunk leaned out the window above them and whistled.  
  
“Hey guys! Not for nothing, but I’ve got Keith loaded up and I think we better head out soon or else the landlord’s going to ask for another bribe.”  
  
Keith squeezed up against Hunk’s side to lean out the window next to him. “I can get you packed super-fast if you want, Lance.”  
  
“I want!” Lance didn’t have as many belongings in the apartment as Keith had, and he hadn’t really unpacked much after returning from the Beverly Wilshire, so there wasn’t much left to sort out.  
  
Keith gave him a thumbs up and disappeared back inside.  
  
“I’ll help too,” Shiro said. “But, um. Will you please help me get the rest of the way up there?”  
  
“I’ll help you,” Lance promised, and kissed him again. “I’ve got your back, whenever you need me.”  
  
Shiro grinned at him fiercely. “Let’s do this.”  
  
Together, they did.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream?
> 
> Unlike previous projects, I don't feel quite done with this AU and I think I could keep going with these guys. Like, they're on opposite coasts but they would totes stay involved with each others' lives. They're going to get married and their families are all going to be different kinds of gonzo about it when they find out. Then there's Darrell's investigation, Rolo's getting ideas about starting a real matchmaking service and wants Nyma in on it with him if she'll just let go of the whole pimp thing, and a bunch of less savory people are still at large. Lotor's living his worst nightmare: every moment of his life now controlled by people who used to work for him. So he's bound to do something crazy eventually.
> 
> But we'll see. Something might happen in season 8 that sends me in a different direction entirely. Also, I am not a very fast writer.

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer applies: I'm not trying to land any of the licensed properties referenced here, I'm just using them for funsies.


End file.
